Cervantes, Tirso de Molina, and the First Generation

Abstract

Among the many playwrights plying their trade in the early years of the development of the comedia nueva, was, as we saw in chapter 1, Spain's greatest writer, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It was his works in prose, of course, which were to make Cervantes's reputation amongst his contemporaries and for posterity. He probably did have some success as a playwright, though, in the early days of the corrales and before Lope de Vega had begun to shape the comedia nueva, and his surviving drama deserves careful attention. Cervantes's failure later in life to have his plays performed has led to his characterization as a frustrated man of the theatre, bitter at the success of Lope's flawed but popular product. (In fact, had Cervantes captured the imagination of the play-going public in the 1590s and early seventeenth century, instead of Lope, there would have been profound repercussions for the development of the novel: Don Quijote and Sancho Panza might never have come to life, at least in the form of characters in a long prose work. As it is, Don Quijote can be described as theatrical in a number of respects, betraying a lasting fascination with the compact between audience and performance.) In the ten extant plays that certainly belong to Cervantes, we can discern a sharp intelligence and a frequently playful attitude towards the Lopean dramatic norms. We shall begin this chapter by looking at some of his representative later works.