For the essential data concerning the authors mentioned here, consult Riquer, Història de la literatura catalana.

For the indispensable general orientation on Corella, see Riquer, Història de la literatura catalana 3; 254-320, Riquer's comments on Corella's Tragèdia are found on pp. 290-5. See, also, Francisco Rico's insightful comments. For my own comments I have made use of Gustà's edition (see «Works Cited» below).

Remarkable in this context is the following statement by Riquer:

Respecte al títol, pot estranyar que aquesta breu prosa sigui qualificada de «tragèdia», però és possible que Corella el triés en atenció a determinades idees preceptives del seu temps relacionades o derivades amb aquella tan coneguda definició de Dante, a la seva epístola a Cangrande della Scala, on diu que, en oposició a la «comèdia», la «tragèdia» es caracteritza per un començament admirable i quiet i un final fastigós i horrible.

(5: 294-5)

For an overview of Moner's multifarious career and literary production, see Cocozzella, 1 Introducción 1-64.

Riquer (Història de la literatura catalana 3: 246-8) provides the essential details and comments on Carròs's career. See, also, Reyes-Tudela's introduction.

A few verses will suffice to evoke the context of this crucial passage:

	Entre les autres en eslui
	un si tres bel, envers celui
	nul des autres rien ne prisé
	puis que celui bien avisé;
	car un color l'enlumine
	qui est si vermeille et si fine
	con Nature le pot plus faire.
	Des fueilles i a quatre paire,
	que Nature par grant maistire
	i ot asisses tire a tire;
	la tige ere droite con jons,
	et par desus siet li boutons
	si qu'i ne cline ne ne pent.

(Vv. 1653-65)

(«Among these buds I singled out one that was so very beautiful that, after I had examined it carefully, I thought that none of the others was worth anything beside it; it glowed with a color as red and as pure as the best that Nature can produce, and she had placed around it four pairs of leaves, with great skill, one after the other. The stem was straight as a sapling, and the bud sat on the top, neither bent or inclined».)

(Trans. Dahlberg 53)

I borrow the term from Dámaso Alonso (Poesía española 531-618). I would argue that the salient traits Alonso discovers in Quevedo's «desgarrón» ―the «elementos descolocados» (564), «la condensación y la virulencia afectiva» (565), the «rotura» (568), the «troquelaciones de la más viva y pintoresca lengua coloquial» (571), for instance― find kindred antecedents in Corella's style.

Riquer (3: 319) argues that this common designation of Corella's style ―applicable, as well, to the ornate writing of other Valencians, including Carròs― is tantamount to a technical definition. Though cognizant of the controversy of whether «"valenciana prosa" vol dir simplement "prosa valenciana" o bé estil culte i filigranat propi de prosistes valencians», Riquer concludes:

Encara que no es pot donar com a segur, i encara que potser no hi ha en tot això una intenció plenament definitòria, crec que la «valenciana prosa» designava el català retòri i ampul·lós, del tipus de les proses de Roís de Corella.

(Història de la literatura catalana 3: 319)

In his seminal study entitled Mediaeval Spanish Allegory (75-102), Chandler Rathfon Post provides a general background for the paradigmatic presentation of the lover's gloomy dwelling. Post evokes a Miltonian «dark world and wide» of sorts, which he traces back to three noteworthy French poems respectively of the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth century ―namely Baudouin de Condé's Li prisons d'amours, Eustache Deschamps's Lay du desert d'amours, and Alain Chartier's Hospital d'Amours (see Post 75, 79-81). (For Milton's expression see his Sonnet XIX). Of great interest is, also, Edward Dudley's essay entitled «The Inquisition of Love: Tratado as a Fictional Genre». Dudley stresses the significance of the «cárcel image» which he considers emblematic of three works (namely, El siervo libre de amor by Juan Rodríguez del Padrón, Cárcel de amor by Diego de San Pedro, and Grimalte y Gradissa by Juan de Flores), generally designated as exemplars of the novela sentimental (237). Dudley's description of what he calls «[t]he baleful force of this enclosure» (238) is eminently applicable to the primordial text of the lover's solitude.

Antonio Cortijo Ocaña provides an interesting example of the intertextuality championed by Alegre. The same may be said of Roxana Recio apropos of Carrós. See the studies of these scholars in the bibliography below.