Death and Life in Colonial Nahua Mexico presents seven dramas from the first truly American theater. Composed in Nahuatl during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most of these plays survive only in later copies. Five are morality plays. Presenting Christian views of moral reform, death, judgment, and punishment for sin, they reveal how these themes were adapted into Nahua culture. The other two plays dramatize biblical narratives: the stories of Abraham and Isaac and of the three wise men. In this volume, Barry D. Sell and Louise M. Burkhart offer faithful transcriptions of the Nahuatl as well as new English translations of these remarkable dramas. Accompanying the plays are four interpretive essays and a foreword that broaden our understanding of these rare works.

Nahuatl drama, one of the most surprising results of the Catholic presence in colonial Mexico, merges medieval European religious theater with the language and performance traditions of the Aztec (Nahua) people of central Mexico. Franciscan missionaries, seeking effective tools for evangelization, fostered this new form of theater after observing the Nahuas' enthusiasm for elaborate performances. The plays became a controversial component of native Christianity, allowing Nahua performers to present Christian discourse in ways that sometimes effected subtle changes in meaning. The Indians' enthusiastic embrace of alphabetic writing enabled the use of scripts, but the genre was so unorthodox that Spanish censors prevented the plays' publication. As a result, colonial Nahuatl drama survives only in scattered manuscripts, most of them anonymous, some of them passed down and recopied over generations.

"Aztecs on Stage" presents accessible English translations of six of these seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Nahuatl plays. All are based on European dramatic traditions, such as the morality and passion plays; indigenous actors played the roles of saints, angels, devils--and even the Virgin Mary and Jesus Christ. Louise M. Burkhart's engaging introduction places the plays in historical context, while stage directions and annotations in the works provide insight into the Nahuas' production practices, which often incorporated elaborate sets, props, and special effects including fireworks and music. The translations facilitate classroom readings and performances while retaining significant artistic features of the Nahuatl originals.

Don BartolomE de Alva was a mestizo who rose within New Spain's ecclesiastical hierarchy when people of indigenous heritage were routinely excluded from the priesthood. In 1640 and 1641 he translated several theatrical pieces from Spanish into Nahuatl, yet this prodigious accomplishment remained virtually unknown for centuries.Nahuatl Theater, Volume 3 presents for the first time in English the complete dramatic works of Alva, the only known plays from Spain's Golden Age adapted into the lively world of Nahuatl-language theater. Alva's translations-"The Great Theater of the World," "The Animal Prophet and the Fortunate Patricide," "The Mother of the Best," and a farcical intermezzo-represent ambitious attempts to add complex, Baroque dramatic pieces by such literary giants as Lope de Vega and Pedro CalderOn de la Barca to the repertory of Nahuatl theater, otherwise dominated by sober one-act religious plays grounded in medieval tradition. The Spanish sources and Alva's Nahuatl, set on facing pages with their English translations, show how Alva "Mexicanized" the plays by incorporating Nahuatl linguistic conventions and referencing local symbolism and social life. In their introductory essays, the editors offer contextual and interpretive information that provides an entrEe into this rich material. As the only known adaptations of these theatrical works into a Native American language, these plays stand as fine literature in their own right.

"Death and Life in Colonial Nahua Mexico" presents seven dramas from the first truly American theater. Composed in Nahuatl during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, most of these plays survive only in later copies. Five are morality plays. Presenting Christian views of moral reform, death, judgment, and punishment for sin, they reveal how these themes were adapted into Nahua culture. The other two plays dramatize biblical narratives: the stories of Abraham and Isaac and of the three wise men.

In this volume, Barry D. Sell and Louise M. Burkhart offer faithful transcriptions of the Nahuatl as well as new English translations of these remarkable dramas. Accompanying the plays are four interpretive essays and a foreword that broaden our understanding of these rare works.

"This volume is the first in a four-volume set entitled "Nahuatl Theater," edited by Barry D. Sell and Louise M. Burkhart"

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