Title: Tirso's<i>La venganza de Tamar</i>: second part of a trilogy?
Abstract: Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: BIBLE/BIBLIAMOLINA, TIRSO DE [GABRIEL TÉLLEZ] (1584?–1648)VENGANZA DE TAMAR, LA [TIRSO DE MOLINA] Notes 1. These plays are El Aquiles, Antona García, Aveíigüelo Vargas, El Caballero de Gracia, Doña Beatriz de Silva, La election por la virlud, Los Lagos de San Vicente, and La prudencia en la mujer. 2. J. C. Metford, ‘Tirso de Molina's Old Testament plays’, BHS, XXVII (1950), 150. 3. Albert E. Sloman, The Dramatic Craftsmanship of Calderón. His Use of Earlier Plays (Oxford 1958), 100. 4. A discussion of the form of Tirso's trilogies is found in my unpublished doctoral dissertation A Critical Analysis of the Extant Trilogies of Tirso de Molina, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1966. 5. Nancy K. Mayberry, ‘On the structure of the Santa Juana trilogy’, South Atlantic Bulletin, XLI (1976), 13–21. 6. For further discussion of similarities with Greek tragedy in the Pizarro trilogy see Nancy K. Mayberry, ‘The role of the warrior women in Tirso's Amazonas en las índias’, Bulletin of the Comediantes, XXIX, No. 1 (1977), 38–44. 7. H. D. F. Kitto, Greek Tragedy, 2nd ed. (London 1958), 149. 8. A recent editor of Calderón's Los cabellos de Absalón has also noted the similarity between this play and the ancient Greek trilogies of Aeschylus. In his edition of Pedro Calderón de la Barca, Tragedias (3): La devoción de la cruz. El mágico prodigioso. Los cabellos de Absalón. La cisma de Inglaterra (Madrid 1969), Francisco Ruiz Ramón calls this play on the back cover ‘La obra española mas influenciada por la tragedia griega; la pasión incestuosa de Amón y la ambición de poder de Absalón tienen indudablemente su fuente en Esquilo.’ In the introduction (23) he points out the similarities between the story of David's sons and the persecution in the royal house of Laius in Aeschylus’ trilogy of which only Seven against Thebes remains. 9. Typical of these is Everett Hesse, who wrote ‘Tirso takes the basic theme which he designates as “La pasión de amor ciega”, and associates it with illegal acts like the violent usurpation of power by Absalón, and David's adultery with Bathsheba in the pre-stage action’ (‘The incest motif in Tirso's La venganza de Tamar’, Hispania, XLVII [1964], 268). A. K. G. Paterson ed., La venganza de Tamar (Cambridge 1969), 13 also noted that preachers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries ‘would relate the family tragedy to the cumulative punishment that David suffered for the murder of Uriah and seduction of Bathsheba.’ 10. Commentary on II Samuel 13:1–20, The Interpreters’ Bible eds. George Buttrick et al. (New York 1953), 1108. 11. Perhaps the most famous mention of this division of sin is found in a speech by Don Gil in Mira de Amescua's El esclavo del demonio, ‘La ejecutada maldad/tres partes ha de tener:/pensar, consentir y obrar:’ (I, viii). 12. These are Gaspar Leandro Montesinos’ Los trabajos de David y finezas de Michol, and Manuel de Vargas’ Las niñzasy primer triunfo de David. 13. Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, Estudios sobre el teatro de Lope de Vega (Madrid 1919), I, 199. 14. C. E. Anibal noted that ‘The mocedades of El arpa de David leave as admirable dramatic material for such a second part the stories of Tamar and of Absalom, with perhaps the usurpation of Adonijah. Without in any way solving our problem, Calderón's unquestioned Los cabellos de Absalón is in subject matter exactly what one would expect Mira's second part to be [ … ] Tirso's La venganza de Tamar [ … ] from which Calderón lifted his second act almost intact, makes David very much less of a central figure.’ Mira de Amescua, El arpa de David, ed. C. E. Anibal (Columbus, Ohio 1925), 10. Most editors and commentators of La venganza de Tamar have refuted this latter comment. 15. For a discussion of the dating of the play see C. E. Anibal, 7–8. 16. For a discussion of the symbols of this scene see Juan O. Valencia, ‘La función del símbolo en una comedia de Tirso (La venganza de Tamar)’ Bulletin of the Comediantes, XXVI (Spring, 1974), 1–5. 17. The play's final page contains the following information: ‘Hallaráse esta Comedia y otras de diferentes Títulos en Madrid en la Imprenta de Antiguo de Sanz, en la Plazuela de la calle de la Paz. Año de 1751.’ A copy of this play is available in the Teatro Antiguo collection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill library, call number 862.8 T 2551, vol. 17, no. 13. 18. These variants are described in an article by A. K. G. Paterson, ‘The textual history of Tirso's La venganza de Tamar’, MLR, LXIII (1968), 381–91. A 1632 manuscript is a variant to the drama published in Tirso's Tercera Parte of 1634, and has notes added to the first page. There the name Godínez has been added below Anónimo. Paterson suggests that these notes were added by Agustín Durán. A suelta version's title reads ‘La venganza de Thamar/Comedia/Famosa/del Doctor Felipe Godínez/En Sevilla por Francisco de Leefdael.’ This printer operated in the early eighteenth century. 19. I am indebted here to the gracious aid of Gerald Wade who very kindly read the Godínez play and offered this valuable advice and criticism. 20. See note 18. 21. Paterson, ‘The textual history’, 388, n. 1. 22. Gwynne Edwards, ‘Sobre la transmisión del texto de Los cabellos de Absalón de Calderón’, RABM, LXXVI (1973), 109–20, studies the variants of the various editions and notes that the surviving versions are closest to Tirso's published version in the Tercera Parte. 23. A. E. Sloman, op. cit, 94–127; H. F. Giacoman, Estudioy edition crítica de la comedia Los cabellos de Absalón (Chapel Hill, N.C. 1968), 35–42; Calderón de la Barca, Los cabellos de Absalón, ed. Gwynne Edwards (Oxford 1973), 7–14. 24. A minor example is the scene in which Solomon comes upon the dreaming David at the request of Bathsheba. Their conversation concerning the succession is interrupted and never completed. The story of Bathsheba's son would be more important in a unified trilogy where David's sin with Bathsheba would be the impulse for the tragedy. 25. I. L. McClelland, Tirso de Molina. Studies in Dramatic Realism (Liverpool 1948), 40–64. 26. It is worth noting that Laureta's prophecy is Tirso's invention and further evidence of the deliberate use of structural parallels. 27. The rôle of advisers in these plays is extremely interesting. Ahitophel is rewarded by David while being a traitor and adviser to Absalom. The faithful Ensay is passed over for reward while endangering his life in David's service. 28. I Kings 2:31–33 narrates the death of Joab on the orders of Solomon as fulfilment of the wishes made by David at the end of his life. 29. The Interpreters’ Bible, Commentary to II Samuel 18:33, 1143. 30. Gwynne Edwards, ‘Calderón's Los cabellos de Absalón: a reappraisal’, BHS, XLVIII (1971), 238. 31. Research for this article was made possible by a research grant from the East Carolina University Research Council and by released time from teaching. Special thanks are due Mary Francis Morris, a librarian whose special talents for locating obscure unpublished manuscripts greatly facilitated this research.
Publication Year: 1978
Publication Date: 1978-04-01
Language: en
Type: article
Indexed In: ['crossref']
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Cited By Count: 1
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