Lope de Vega: «The Trial of Wits» / «La prueba de los ingenios»

Bridging Cultures and Discourses: The Importance of Translating La prueba de los ingenios by Lope de Vega

Translating La prueba de los ingenios, first published by Lope de Vega himself in 1617, offers an opportunity to introduce one of Spain’s most influential playwrights to a wider audience. This bilingual edition aims to be a valuable resource for English-speaking readers who may not be familiar with the Spanish language, making Lope’s play accessible to new readers. By adding to the existing body of English translations of Lope’s comedies, this work seeks to broaden the understanding of his diverse oeuvre. It is intended to benefit students of Spanish language and culture, as well as theater enthusiasts with an interest in classical plays. The translation is versatile and could be used in a variety of settings, including theatrical productions, academic courses, or personal reading, thereby extending the reach of Lope de Vega’s work.

One of the key benefits of this translation is its potential to contribute to the expanding community of scholars addressing the debates surrounding sexual, gender, and social issues during Lope’s time. The growing number of university courses on related topics and the increase in academic publications highlight the rising interest in these subjects. By providing an English version of La prueba de los ingenios, this bilingual edition will enable non-Spanish speaking scholars and students to engage with these important discussions. It will facilitate a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural context of the play, fostering a more inclusive academic environment.

Moreover, translating La prueba de los ingenios into English will contribute to the global appreciation of Lope de Vega’s literary genius. As one of the most prolific and influential playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, Lope’s work deserves recognition beyond the Spanish-speaking world. This bilingual edition will not only preserve the original text but also provide a comprehensive understanding of its themes and cultural nuances, bridging the gap between Spanish and English literary traditions. By making this significant work accessible to English-speaking readers, the translation will ensure that Lope de Vega’s contributions to literature and theater continue to inspire and educate future generations.

The play’s exploration of significant themes further underscores the importance of its translation. Lope de Vega’s work delves into the concept of self-representation and the hybrid condition of theater professionals during early modern Spain. These themes are particularly relevant today as they offer insights into the evolving nature of identity and professional roles. Additionally, as we will explore in detail, the play addresses hybrid sexualities and the intellectual capabilities of women, with the character of Florela, the female protagonist, serving as a reflection of Lope himself. The translation of this work is crucial for contemporary discussions, not only in academic circles but also in broader societal contexts.

Our examination focuses on how hybrid sexuality in the comedia symbolizes the ambiguous status of the professional playwright in early modern society. Lope, as a professional writer, engages with the dual nature of theater, both as a literary genre and as a social institution. The play specifically addresses the tension between Lope, the professional playwright, and academic amateurs. Lope faces condemnation from the cultural elite of his time, who reject the foundational principles of his comedia nueva. This official culture denounces the anti-classicist stance of the Spanish author, a stance he elaborates in his Arte nuevo de hacer comedias (1609), the manifesto of his theatrical revolution, where he discusses both practical and theoretical aspects of the comedia.

La prueba de los ingenios illustrates the condition of dependence experienced by the professional writer, whose creative choices are influenced by two main forces: the public theater audience and the courtly patrons who validate the artist’s work, thereby securing his social and cultural approval. One of the key aspects of this translation is its ability to illuminate the complexities of the Spanish Golden Age theater, particularly the hybrid nature of the comedia. Lope expresses the hybridity of the comedia genre and the social hybridity of the playwright through the concept of sexual hybridity.

The Hybrid Nature of the Comedia: Exploring Genre and Subgenre in La prueba de los ingenios

When the humanist Francisco de Cascales attempted to classify the genre of theatrical works in his time in his Tablas poéticas (1617), he found that they did not fit neatly into the categories of tragedy or comedy as defined by Aristotelian orthodoxy.¹ Thus, the works of the comedia nueva introduced by Lope constituted what Cascales described as “unos hermafroditos, unos monstruos de la poesía” [“hermaphrodites, monsters of poetry”] (194)² due to their celebrated hybridity of the comic and the tragic, as Lope himself noted in his Arte Nuevo: “Lo trágico y lo cómico mezclado” [“To mix the tragic and the comic,” New Rules] (v. 176). This blending of genres not only pertained to themes or episodes but also influenced the types of characters and the language they used, contrasting sharply with Aristotelian prescriptions.³ For these reasons and more, the Aristotelian definitions of comedy and tragedy are deemed ineffective for studying the performing arts of the Golden Age, leading to the use of the generic term comedia to encompass the full range and variety of the genre.

Taking into account the heterogeneity of the comedia format and its capacity to integrate disparate elements, it is important to approach the typology of La prueba de los ingenios by analyzing its constituent elements.⁴ Menéndez Pelayo, the creator of the first taxonomic system for the comedia of the Golden Age, categorized it among the novelescas (novelesque), that is, those whose stories adapted or reproduced plots similar to the short novels that enjoyed widespread popularity during the period.⁵ The rendering of stories in the comedia format or in the novela format was so similar that some playwrights, like Lope or Tirso de Molina, transformed stories into novelas when they were unable to write them as comedias during periods when theater was restricted. Although no direct source has been identified, La prueba de los ingenios shares thematic traits and types of episodes with some novelas, such as the deceived female character who travels disguised (sometimes as a man) to reclaim her honor and her husband. Examples of this include the novela ejemplar, Las dos doncellas and the episode of Dorotea and Fernando in Cervantes’ Don Quixote. The cases of love and honor and the type of characters, noblemen or high-ranking knights, bring our comedia closer to that type of narrative, which similarly shares the premise that women have the same right to honor as men.

However, just like comedy, the novel genre also presents a great thematic diversity (pastoral, Moorish, Byzantine, picaresque, urban, etc.), making the term novelesque insufficient for an in-depth generic characterization of a particular case. The same could be said for the term comedia de fantasía (fantasy comedy), which would be the most appropriate for La prueba de los ingenios in the taxonomic system proposed by Bruce Wardropper.⁶ More interesting, however, is relating our play to the subgenre of the comedia palatina (palace comedy), introduced by Marc Vitse in his genre classification. Vitse defines its characteristics as a geographically and temporally distant setting, an interaction between characters of very high social rank (kings, princes, great lords, etc.) and others of humble origin (secretaries, peasants, etc.) connected through a complicated plot of romantic entanglements (330), with Lope’s El perro del hortelano as one of its paradigms.⁷ Building on this definition, Miguel Zugasti has distinguished between the comic comedias palatinas and the serious ones, the latter primarily dealing with potentially tragic themes such as honor and poor governance, although in both, the conflicts are resolved happily. Eva Rodríguez García (123n) includes La prueba de los ingenios among Lope’s comedias palatinas, and Castrillo Alaguero specifically categorizes it as a comic one (230). Although the 17th-century comedia palatina softened and made more palatable certain tragic elements of earlier genres of palace plays, they still retain serious and conflicting themes, such as honor or abuse of power, and portray the capricious social and political life of the elites, softening the criticism through the strategy of a remote setting and a happy ending.⁸

We can use the concise definition of the subgenre offered by Joan Oleza⁹ to highlight some of its main characteristics, which we will identify in La prueba de los ingenios: first, a) the setting in an unreal time and place, far from the Madrid of the Habsburgs, allowing for bold plot inventions; second, b) the action takes place in the environment of the palace and court, with a social universe composed of royalty and high nobility, assisted by high-ranking officials, secretaries, and servants; third, c) it contains a central episode involving the concealment of identity, either due to ignorance or the strategic decision of a character, often arising from some social or moral disorder, which will be revealed once harmony is restored; and fourth, d) the masking of identity allows the character to explore alternative identities, alternative ways of being, or alternative social statuses, while also providing a view, often through a comic-satirical lens, of the dark side of the court, its corruptions, the moral decay of courtiers, the weaknesses of rulers, or abuses of power.