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This thesis inquires into the nature of the esperpento of Ramon del Valle-Inclan in order to understand the qualities inherent in the genre; and further, it considers the contemporaneous nature of this art form that makes it relevant to contemporary art and thought.

The succeeding chapters of this present investigation seek to establish a classification of stylistic devices employed by Valle-Inclan in the four Sonatas, with emphasis, not only upon imagery, but equally upon the author's use of regional and natural phenomena, supernatural elements, the arousing of human emotions through sensory appeal, and finally, upon purely rhetorical patterns and organizational elements.

The present research is focused on the formal devices that Azcona and José Luís García Sánchez display in the film adaptation of Las galas del difunto, a theater play included in Martes de Carnaval, published in 1930 by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán. Framed within the state politics of cultural promotion, Las galas del difunto was released for television consumption, thus, its characteristics are very relevant in order to analyze the priorities and strategies developed in the adaptation process. Not only does the main obstacle remain in the fact that the original play is difficult to represent in theater (mostly due to its secondary text), but also the metatextual dimension of Valle-Inclán’s texts. The Galician writer creates his own genre (el esperpento) trough both a series of characterization devices, a master use of language, and action structures; but also writing from a very particular perspective (looking for aesthetic distance) and mixing other existent genres. This complex collage crashes with the naturalistic tendency of audiovisual representation and offers a wide variety of open fronts that appeal directly to the adaptation concept. Clearly, the script writers have noticed the formal structures in the text and, to a certain extent, “translated” into genuine cinematographic language. However, the result of this sense of fidelity could present paradoxes within the movie and in regard to the audience’s reception. Those contradictions, even though included in the original play, have to deal with the whole new cinematographic context. The tensions between the play and the movie will arise through acting, lightning, camera framing, and mise en scene.