The Suelta Collection of the University of North Carolina

Abstract

In the Region de las fiestas for San Isidro's canonization (with its tasa dated Sept. 1, 1622), Lope will describe the seemingly automatic ( "se-movente" ) tramoya which Mira de Amescua had had created for the occasion, then point out that Heron Alejandrino had written of such a tramoya, even though it was "jamás vista en España." Indeed , the tramoya was "tan antigua que hace della memoria Homero en la Ilíada." 23 See Acad, ed., IV, Act II, 57-58. 24JuSt what contemporary poets Lope had in mind for Corintio and "the Greek poet," I am not certain. The first reference may be to Guillen de Castro, in whom Lope praised on another occasion "el vivo ingenio, el rayo, el espíritu ardiente." In speaking of Guillen de Castro, Hurtado y Palencia [Hist, de la lit. esp. (Madrid, 1949), 585] have also commented on 'la energía de un estilo enf ático, a veces algo culterano, con el que buscaba asombrar la imaginación de su público" and "la flojedad en el desarrollo de la acción." The "Greek poet," presumably Aristophanes, would probably represent among Lope's contemporaries, Vélez de Guevara , long known as a dramatist of "comedias de espectáculo." 25 See Pérez Pastor, Bibl. madr., III. u Just who Tirso's enemies were in 1621, los que envidian sus obras," is one of the very complicated problems in his theatre. I shall have to leave discussion for another occasion. 27Sr. J. de Entrambasaguas ( Una guerra literaria del Siglo de Oro, Lope de Vega y los preceptistas aristotélicos, included in Estudios sobre Lope de Vega, I and II) has given us a superbly documented study of Lope's fight with Suárez de Figueroa and Torres Ramila. I have in manuscript a long study of Tirso's part in that fight. 28See S. G. Morley and C. Bruerton, The Chronology of Lope de Vega's "comedias" (N.Y., 1940), 198. They date it "ca. 1608." ^^t#«7^v The Suelta Collection of the University of North Carolina Raymond R. MacCurdy The University of New Mexico For a number of years the University of Norm Carolina has made a concerted effort to build up one of the finest collections of Spanish and Catalan drama in the United States. Its library now contains over twenty-five thousand separately printed plays, the great majority of which were published after 1830, although almost two thousand were printed before that date. Most of these are sueltas of seventeenth - and eighteenth-century comedias . William A. McKnight, with the collaboration of Mabel Barrett Jones, has just issued A Catalogue of "comedias sueltas" in the Library of the University of North Carolina, University of North Carolina Library Studies, Number 4 (Chapel Hill, 1965). The price of this volume of 240 pages is $4.00. The catalogue contains 1911 entries (not separate titles), some of which refer to different editions of the same play. Duplicates of the same edition, however, are not included in the total number of entries. The titles are listed alphabetically (not under individual audiors ) , but an index of authors is included at the end making it possible to locate easily the titles ascribed to each author. Each edition is given a separate item number, and the usual publication data—place and date of publication and the name of the printer —are supplied when known. The numbering of the signatures and pages is given to facilitate the proper identification of each edition. The first and last lines of each edition are also given. 34 My impression is that the collection contains some rare and interesting items. A few years ago when I was preparing an edition of Rojas Zorrilla's La vida en el ataúd, I searched in Spanish and other European libraries for manuscripts and sueltas of the play but found none. If the copy listed in the present catalogue is indeed a suelta and not pages torn from the volume in which the play was first printed (Parte 32 of the Comedias escogidas), it is a rare item indeed. Comediantes are indebted to Professor McKnight and Mrs. Jones for their fine work. Not only...