Balearic Islands PAU Dramatic Literature case studies
Balearic Islands PAU Dramatic Literature · Put your knowledge to work in context.
The PAU in Història de la literatura dramàtica is the university-access examination sat in the Balearic Islands by students who choose dramatic literature as one of their optional PAU subjects. It is aimed at candidates who have completed the batxillerat and need to raise their university-admission score, particularly those heading for filologia, humanities, communication or teaching degrees. The Balearic Islands PAU Dramatic Literature case studies are 5 cases and about 2,867 words.
1Locating the Crisis in an Unseen Honour Play
In a PAU-style mock exam, candidates receive a sixty-line passage from an unseen Golden Age play. The passage begins with Don Lope asking his servant, Fabio, why the street door was left open.
552 words, about 3 min2Verse, Prose and the Aside in a Widow's Monologue
A candidate is analysing a thirty-five-line monologue from a modern tragedy on the prescribed list. The character, a widow, begins in eleven-syllable lines with assonant rhyme, describing her dead husband's boots.
542 words, about 3 min3Dating a Play by Its Unities: Baroque or Neoclassical?
A candidate is contextualising an unseen play first performed in Madrid in 1635. The play is set in a single noble house, its action spans three days, and it includes a gracioso servant who comments on his master's honour.
686 words, about 3 min4Tragicomedy or Drama? Classifying a Mixed-Ending Play
A candidate must classify a play for a genre-theory question. The play's main plot follows Duke Orsino, who is exposed for embezzling famine relief; in Act V he refuses reconciliation, draws a knife, and dies of a heart attack as soldiers break in.
534 words, about 3 min5Confined Space across the Prescribed List: A Comparative Plan
The exam asks: 'How does each prescribed work use a confined space to intensify dramatic conflict?' The candidate has studied three works: a Greek tragedy set before a palace, a Golden Age comedia that moves between street, palace, and a play-within-a-play, and a twentieth-century rural tragedy set in a house with thick walls and shuttered windows. The candidate plans to answer only on the rural tragedy because 'it is the only one with a real house.' The rubric rewards comparison across at least two works and attention to staging: space, off-stage sound, and the audience's relationship to what is seen and hidden.
553 words, about 3 min