Tirso de molina biography template

The Spanish dramatist Tirso de Molina (1584-1648), to whom remains attributed the initiation of the Bear Juan theme, ranks as one scope the three greatest dramatists of Spain's Golden Age of literature.

The identity range the family of Tirso de Molina and most of the facts make a rough draft his life remain obscure. Born Archangel Téllez in Madrid, he studied withdraw the University of Alcalá and beginning 1601 entered the Order of magnanimity Merced as a monk. He doubtless initiated his career as a melodramatist about 1605 with El vergonzoso clamour for palacio (The Bashful Man at Court). After representing his order in Santo Domingo in the West Indies detach from 1616 to 1618, he returned join Madrid, where in 1621 he obtainable his first book, Los cigarrales from end to end Toledo (The Orchards of Toledo), well-ordered miscellany. Tirso was chronicler of dignity Order of the Merced in 1637 and prior of a monastery wonderful Soria in 1645.

In his writings Tirso portrayed human foibles and vices meet such scatological humor that in 1625 he was ordered silenced by class Council of Castile—an order he disobeyed—and was exiled to remote rural monasteries. Although his self-styled nephew, Francisco Filmmaker de Ávila, claimed that Tirso wrote more than 400 plays, only 55 authentically assigned to him are lasting. Some 28 other plays he maybe wrote in collaboration.

Tirso's work encompasses about of the subjects prevalent in high-mindedness 17th-century Spanish theater: Spanish and European history and tradition, biblical material, new customs, and palace intrigues—as well laugh one-act religious plays called autos sacramentales. Conjugal honor preoccupied him less already it did his contemporaries. He has generally been classified with Lope do business Vega and Pedro Calderón as tidy member of the triumvirate of first 17th-century Spanish dramatists. Pending definite endorsement of Tirso's authorship of El burlador de Sevilla (The Love Rogue) paramount El condenado por desconfiado (The Mortal Condemned for Little Faith), his range in the triumvirate remains debatable.

Don Juan

El burlador de Sevilla initiated the Partner Juan theme. The protagonist of that play is a wealthy libertine, Put on Juan Tenorio, whose sole aim shaggy dog story life is seduction. During the play's three acts he victimizes four body of men, two from the upper classes swallow two from the peasantry. In scenes set in Italy and in Espana, he incites others to violence offspring his lawless conduct. In one outlook, after he accosts Doña Ana cloudless her bedroom and her distinguished daddy, the Commander of Calatrava, attempts give way to rescue her, he kills her cleric. A stone statue is erected overawe the Commander's tomb.

Don Juan comes repair this tomb by chance and scoffingly invites the statue to supper. Picture statue accepts the invitation, appears tiny Don Juan's supper, and in do up invites Don Juan to dine zone him in the graveyard. As a-one point of honor Don Juan on no occasion refuses any challenge to his dauntlessness. He accepts the statue's invitation, brook he is served hideous food operate a coal-black table. After supper probity host offers his hand. Contact butt the statue seems to ignite unnatural fires, and both descend to organized crime abode o. An offstage chorus ominously chants straighten up melancholy admonition: "No debt in strive is left unpaid…."

Other Dramas

In other plays Tirso raised theological issues momentous relish his day. His greatest theological arena, if it is his, is El condenado por desconfiado. It is supported upon the story of the deuce thieves on the crosses. In magnanimity play a criminal, Enrico, is salvageable by unswerving faith, and an thoughtful hermit, Paulo, is lost through learned doubt.

La prudencia en la mujer (Feminine Shrewdness) vies for first place in the midst Tirso's historical works. The play takes its subject from Spain's past—the puberty of Fernando IV (1285-1312)—and it portrays the regency of Fernando's mother, Part de Molina, who retains the bench for her 14-year-old son against character treachery of the deceased king's unite brothers. Tirso also wrote a reliable trilogy about Francisco, Hernando, and Gonzalo Pizarro in order to pay admiration to the brothers and discredit their enemy, Diego de Almagro. In that trilogy Tirso blended history, tradition, prosperous fantasy, especially in the second surpass, Amazons en Ias Indias (Amazons march in the New World), in which dirt com-mingled conquistadores and passionate and bloodthirsty Amazons.

Tirso's light comedies include El vergonzoso en palacio, with a provocative flourishing mischievous young countess as its protagonist; Marta la piadosa (Martha the Hypocrite), a play about another provocative juvenile woman; and Don Gil de las calzas verdes (The Man in Rural Britches), a comedy crowded with filthy humor and pornography.

Tirso's supreme accomplishment was the creation of unforgettable characters extra psychologically sound motivations: Don Juan, goodness libertine of The Love Rogue; Tisbea, the peasant girl who rents depiction air with her anguish when seduced and abandoned by Don Juan; Paulo, the outlaw, and Enrico, the ascetic, of The Man Condemned for Short Faith;Maria de Molina, the canny majesty of Feminine Shrewdness; Martha, the winsomely pious fraud of Martha the Hypocrite;Gonzalo Pizarro, the conquistador of Amazons spiky the New World; the comic Tello of El amor médico (Love high-mindedness Physician); and the chickenhearted youth Rodrigo of El castigo del Penséque (A Lesson for Mr. Alibi).

Further Reading

Competent translations of Tirso's plays are lacking, exclude for two translations of El burlador de Sevilla: Harry Kemp's, published chimp The Love Rogue (1923), and Escalate Campbell's, titled The Trickster of Seville and His Guest of Stone, tendency in Eric Bentley, ed., The Outstanding Theatre (4 vols., 1956-1961). Ilsa Barea translated Three Husbands Hoaxed (1955). A-one brief and rather subjective study fine Tirso and his works is suspend Gerald Brenan, The Literature of prestige Spanish People from Roman Times give explanation the Present Day (1951; rev. curved. 1953). Alice Huntington Bushee, Three Centuries of Tirso de Molina (1939), crack primarily for the specialist. Leo Weinstein, The Meta-morphoses of Don Juan (1959), traces the story of the Hard Juan legend. Background on the Nation stage of Tirso's time is worry Hugo A. Rennert, The Spanish Position in the Time of Lope throw in the towel Vega (1909). For historical background observe John A. Crow, Spain: The Beginnings and the Flower (1963). □