Tamayo y Baus, Manuel

Tamayo y Baus, Manuel (mänwĕl` tämä`yō ē bous), 1829–98, Spanish dramatist. Born into a family of actors, Tamayo became one of the most popular and versatile Spanish playwrights of the 19th cent. Among his many successful plays are the historical Locura de amor [the madness of love] (1855) and his tragic masterpiece, Un drama nuevo (1867; tr. A New Drama, 1915). In his contemporary thesis dramas he wrote of social problems.

Bibliography

See biography by G. C. Flynn (1973).

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Tamayo y Baus, Manuel 

Born Sept. 15, 1829, in Madrid; died there June 20, 1898. Spanish playwright. Member of the Royal Spanish Academy (1858).

Tamayo y Baus’ first published works were the romantic historical dramas Joan of Arc (1847; a free adaptation of Schiller’s The Maid of Orleans), Augusts (1849), and Virginia (1853). Tamayo y Baus set forth the principles of realistic drama in the speech Truth as the Source of Beauty in Dramatic Literature (1859). Other works by Tamayo y Baus were Madness From Love (1855; Russian translation, 1875), a realistic psychological drama on a historical subject; several plays about contemporary mores, including The Snowball (1856) and Duels (1863); and A New Drama (1867; Russian translation, 1919), a psychological play set in Shakespeare’s time. Tamayo y Baus’ comedy Honest Men (1870) criticized the bourgeois way of life from a conservative standpoint.

WORKS

Obras, vols. 1–4. Madrid, 1848–1900.

REFERENCES

Sicars y Salvadó, N. D. Manuel Tamayo y Baus: Estudio crítico-biográfico. Barcelona, 1906.
Sainz de Robles, F. C. El teatro español: Historia y antología, vol. 7. Madrid, 1943.
Flynn, G. Manuel Tamayo y Baus. New York [1973], (Contains bibliography.)

Z. I. PLAVSKIN