Gracioso (original) (raw)

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Stock character, in Spanish classical theater

The gracioso (pronounced [ɡɾaˈθjoso]) is a clown or jester in Spanish comedy of the 16th century. Clarín, the clown in Pedro Calderón de la Barca's Life is a dream is recognized as a gracioso.

Benjamin Ivry describes the gracioso as "scatological, sexual, anti-feminist, anti-Semitic, and a vehicle for wild, anti-heroic satire. A gross trickster with license to every obscenity, a gracioso could also be poignant, but mostly he burlesqued eroticism by declaring as identical hermaphrodites, homosexuals and eunuchs .[1]

Northrop Frye identified him as a type of tricky slave.

Alborada del gracioso, the fourth movement of Miroirs (1904–05) by Maurice Ravel, is a musical portrait of a gracioso.

1. ^ Ivry, Benjamin (2000). Maurice Ravel: A Life. New York, NY: Welcome Rain Publishers. pp. 44. ISBN 1-56649-152-5.

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). "Gracioso". The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne.