Lucistela, comedia anónima e inédita de finales del siglo XVI: estudio y edición crítica

Abstract

This Doctoral Thesis represents the first study and edition of Lucistela , an unpublished anonymous comedy dated at the end of XV I Century. Our intention is to achieve several objectives with this study and crit ical edition: 1) To bring this unfortunately unknown text to the public light, making possible not only to read a comedy that has lain for Centuries i n the shelves of a Library; but to enrich our knowledge of Spanish theatre in the last decade s of XVI Century. 2) To increase our cognizance to the origin and dev elopment of one of the most popular genres in XVII Century in Spain: the comedia de santos . Further to this, we intend to demonstrate that this kind of theatre can be –and in fact it usually is- an instrument for Catholic Counter-Reformation. 3) To carry out a new scientific approach to the le gend of Gregory pope, literary source for this comedy. Although some texts are wel l-known by the critics, there is not a major work in which the whole legend, its origin an d development plays an important role. Most of the research published in the past is focused on the study of one or two of the texts, without considering the entire textual d evelopment of this theme, revealed to be of fundamental transcendence for European literatur e. This new approach to the entire legend constitutes a necessary step to carry out an in-depth study of Lucistela : by our own hypothesis about the textual development and transm ission of this legend, we may be able to postulate which was the nearest source for this comedy. 4) To provide a new literary testimony for this leg end, a link which was missing from the chain until now: the comedy Lucistela , the first dramatic text known to use this legend as its source. 5) To compare this comedy with El marido de su madre , by Matos Fragoso, another comedy based on the same legend, but located around mid XVII Century, for a better knowledge of how the same topic was adapted at the origin and consolidation of the Comedia Nueva, respectively.