FunCulturalThey discover an unknown comedy by Lope de Vega...

They discover an unknown comedy by Lope de Vega in the National Library of Spain

“I have done what I could, Fortuna what she wanted”: is the title of an unknown comedy by Lope de Vega that was discovered in the funds of the National Library of Spain and that could be a work in the key of the maturity of the author, with nods to the political situation of the moment.

As reported last Friday by the National Library of Spain, it is the only copy of the princeps (first of the series), without printing data, from the Sevillian workshop of Francisco de Lyra (1632-1634) and of which not even its title appeared in the lists and documents in which the works of Lope de Vega pending to be located are mentioned.

The work includes Miguel Bermúdez, an occasional actor and writer, as the author, but there is strong evidence of De Vega’s authorship, as evidenced by the study by Abraham Madroñal, professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Geneva, points out the BNE (Library National of Spain).

Abraham Madroñal is responsible for the find, and his study has just been published in the “Olmedo Clásico” collection of the Spanish University of Valladolid.

In the BNE’s funds there are copies of the preserved editions of the work -the “princeps”, another without printing data and two copies of it printed in Seville (southern Spain) already in the 18th century- in which he appears as the author. Miguel Bermúdez, actor and occasional writer. But in reality, the comedy belongs to Lope de Vega, the same playwright who just a few months later would create El punigo sin venganza , a masterpiece of universal theater.

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It is a comedy written in the last vital and artistic stage of De Vega, called “de senectute”, “as sad personally as it is full of art”, the same one in which he creates some of his masterpieces, such as El punishment without revenge , with which he shares reflections of his personal disappointments, such as the satirical taunts against José de Pellicer, a royal chronicler, indicates the BNE.

According to the institution, there is strong evidence of Lope de Vega’s authorship, as evidenced by Madroñal’s study, which used both the traditional resources of philology and those recently provided by digital technology to prove it.

There are hundreds of expressions and even the complete verses of I have done what I could, which are identical to others already written, or to be written, by Lope de Vega, belonging to a very wide variety of works, which constitutes practically irrefutable proof of authorship.

Computational stylometry also tests agreement with Lope de Vega’s theater lexical statistics guidelines, as well as tests based on orthology.

For his part, Germán Vega, professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Valladolid and member of the ISTAE project (Loose prints of the ancient Spanish theater), also identified the finding as coming from the Sevillian printing house of Francisco de Lyra.

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This workshop published the work in the name of Miguel Bermúdez between 1632 and 1634, that is, when Lope de Vega was still alive, indicates the BNE, which explains that it is not yet understood why the same printer who at that time indiscriminately attributed the comedies by other playwrights – including Calderón’s Life is a Dream , as the most significant case – De Vaga was denied authorship in this case.

Madroñal’s study maintains that it could be a work in code, behind whose characters and events significant figures and episodes of the political life of the moment were disguised, in which the family of the Duke of Sessa, protector of Lope de Vega, and especially his brother Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, in need of vindication after Felipe IV dismissed him as governor of Milan in 1629 for his failure in the war of succession of Mantua and Monferrato.

According to the BNE, this finding is only part of what remains to be discovered in the library collections, especially in the section of Spanish theater from the Golden Age.

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