Best website on bullfighting in Spain?
I am doing research and an essay on Bullfighting in Spain. and I was wondering if anyone had any input on bullfighting or if anyone had a good website to use for research. All help and input is greatly appreciated!
Gracias!
Megan
3 Answers
I got these two immediately from a Google search:
I also found this:
Most bullfights last for about 15 minutes, with a series of deliberately vicious stages. The bull is taunted and stabbed with a variety of spears, barbed spikes and daggers. These weapons are designed to inflict intense pain and cause blood loss to weaken the animal.
After this period of suffering, the Matador finally kills the exhausted and dying bull. Many bulls die drowning in their own blood because the Matador's inaccuracy often pierces their lungs instead of the heart.
Following this, a short dagger, or ‘puntilla', is used to sever its spinal cord at the neck before the bull is dragged out of the arena, sometimes still alive.
"La corrida" embodies a number of concepts. From the point of view of the matador, one expects (hopes for) bravery, technique, elegance (and, in some cases, adaptability to the temperament of the bull). From the bull, one hopes for perseverance and "brute strength". Ultimately, one wants a conflict of "reason" versus "strength" (a celebration of assumed human superiority despite physical inferiority).
In many ways, la corrida can be viewed as a "religious celebration" ( of the dominance [superiority] of man over the "dumb brutes"). Obviously, religious celebrations are subject to interpretation. There are those who would suggest that the communion service (with its consumption of the "body" and "blood" of Christ) is but a thinly veiled reference to "ritual cannibalism".
Equally obviously, you may believe that your opinions should be the measure of all things. Others (whoever they may be) have no right to differing opinions. That which offends your sensibilities should be prohibited/prevented and your interpretation of right/wrong should be the only interpretation permitted.
Have a look at this from here.
"The bullfight is the only art in which the artist knowingly stakes his life," said the writer Ernest Hemingway once. Art? So it is an art form shaped by light and shadow and dictated by death? Or is it merely a bloody symbol of human power over an innocent animal? Whatever meaning one may give it, bullfighting is a gripping spectacle, which roots lie in ancient history and is part and parcel of a rich and varied European culture.
The best page in Spanish is "el burladero.com"
