«Authority» in «Comedia» Editions: Tirso de Molina's «Santa Juana»¹

Margaret Rich Greer

Princeton University

The articles in the first volume in this series have presented with concision and clarity the procedures of the scholarly editor of Golden Age drama. Proceeding from that base, I should like to raise several theoretical issues concerning the methods and ends of scholarly editions, to call into question the role of the editor in the life process of the comedia. To illustrate some of the problems posed for the editor in accurately reflecting the life of a comedia, I will refer to the case of Tirso's three-part Santa Juana, which I am currently editing.

A parallel is often drawn between the gestation of a literary work and that of a human life. Tirso de Molina elaborates on that metaphor describing the travails in the «birth» of his Cigarrales de Toledo:

If the book, or drama, is a «baby», then what is the role of the editor? We might say roughly that as new parents we are given a being in its pure and innocent state of creation (with apologies to the concept of original sin), and our job is then to guide its growth to maturity. The editor's task is traditionally oriented in the opposite direction. Taking in guardianship a text which is more like a poorly brought-up stepchild, or a «niño de la Dotrina», that has collected a variety of bad habits in the hands of distracted scribes, careless printers and disrespectful adaptors, the editor tries to cure those bad habits in the attempt to take the text back to its pure created state.

This is our ideal goal; however, when we attempt in practice to achieve it, we inevitably confront a variety of obstacles which keep us from reaching it, particularly in the case of dramatic texts. In order to deal most rationally with those problems, to examine the compromises we make in producing the best feasible approximation to that goal, I believe we must pose -or pose again- some basic questions. The first question is, in the case of dramatic texts, where is that «pure, created state?»

We all know that Velazquez's «Las Meninas» is in the Museo del Prado. We can clearly distinguish between the original and its many copies -or if we cannot, an art historian specializing in such matters can do so. But where is Fuenteovejuna?³ Is it in the English translation of Campbell⁴ or Underhill⁵, or its various translations into French, Italian, German, Russian, Polish or Arabic? Or in careful modern editions such as those of López Estrada or Profeti⁶? In its first edition in the Docena Parte of 1619 in Madrid? Did it disappear when Lope's manuscript was lost? Or is it rather in performances of the play? And if so, is it in all of them, Marxist and conservative, in English, German, Italian as well as Spanish? Is it in performances adapted to the modern taste? Is it only in performances which adhere rigidly to the «original text», whatever and wherever that might be? In other words, what is the mode of existence of a work of art, and more particularly, of a dramatic work of art?

It has become virtually a cliché in recent years to preface any consideration of Golden Age texts with the recognition that the written dramatic text is only one of many codes operative in the theatrical event. When we teach Golden Age drama, many of us dedicate the first class to pointing out the collective and interpretative nature of theatrical production -the importance of directorial decisions, the significance of stage sets, of music, the construction of the theater, and of course, the vital shaping role of actors. We may tell them that whether or not Fuenteovejuna appears to be a revolutionary challenge to absolutism can be influenced by as small a factor as the presence or absence of a smile on the monarchs' faces when they deliver the final pardon- and that, of course, is not in the script. Outside the classroom, however, as editors of drama, I believe that in general we are not equally faithful to that cliché, but that we can be more so by certain modifications in our editorial procedures. Two related but distinct elements are involved, the first being our treatment of the text as a written dramatic text, and the second our presentation of the text as a script for performance.

The primary concern of most responsible editors heretofore has been the written dramatic text. In dealing with it, they have followed editing procedures inherited from those developed by scholars for dealing with classical texts, in which editors were left with a number of late manuscripts which descend in a polygenous series from a lost original. All the late manuscripts having been corrupted in varying degrees through the process of scribal transmission, the editors seek to restore the lost authoritative version through a subtractive process. They collate variants and establish a stemma to show the interrelationships among the extant manuscripts, so they can then identify and remove errors by showing how they emerged historically⁷.

In adapting these procedures to the somewhat different situation of Elizabethan texts, Greg formulated his famous theory of the copy text, which separated so-called «accidentals» (spelling, capitalization and punctuation) from substantives. The editor was to choose that extant text which could most clearly be shown to be closest to the lost original and adhere to it strictly with respect to accidentals, since that form would most closely approximate their state in the original. In the matter of substantive readings, however, Greg proposed that the editor should be free to deviate from the copy text in adopting readings from other states of the text which had more than a 50% probability of being authoritative. Bowers amended this rule by adding to it the concept that editors should be governed by the author's «final intentions» when dealing with problems raised by later texts in which the author's manuscript is still extant, as well as the first published version⁸, and in which authorial revision may occur in the reading of proofs or between editions of a work.

These are the basic procedures which conscientious editors of Golden Age drama have also followed in recent decades except that, even in scholarly editions, they have deviated from the copy-text rule in the modernization of punctuation, capitalization and accentuation, and sometimes spelling.

The result of such techniques is an essentially eclectic text, whose substantive readings are often derived from two or more early states of the text, according to the editor's best judgment of what were the author's original or final intentions. And that is an important «or». Should our hypothetical yardstick be his original intentions or his final ones? And in either case, what is original and what is final? Using the baby metaphor again, does the creation originate with the gleam in the parents' eyes? Or when the fertilized egg begins to grow? Philosophically speaking, «original intentions» must be internal, a mental conception of the author, the «imaginativa» which Tirso names as the mother of his work. Shelley said: «When composition begins, inspiration is already on the decline, and the most glorious poetry that has ever been communicated to the world is probably a feeble shadow of the original conception of the Poet»⁹. Or does it originate when it pushes, or is pushed out into the world -i. e., when the author first commits it to paper? Or when the doctor / midwife cuts the umbilical cord, separating the creature from further nourishment by its mother-in literary terms, when the script is turned over to a publisher or producer?¹⁰

If we prefer to be guided by final intentions, what constitutes finality? It may prove as difficult to grasp as origin. We know that contemporary playwrights often work with directors, revising their texts as they see the play in rehearsal. Should we choose to edit the script that went into rehearsal or the text that remained on opening night? We also know that Calderón was paid to attend rehearsals at least of his court plays, presumably because the same cooperative process was taking place. Even if we had an autograph Calderonian manuscript of such a play, we could not with assurance discard as non-authorial emendations in the hands of an autor de comedias or the apuntador who held the prompt-script, for they might have received the concurrence of Calderón.

Closely examined, then, the search for authority for editorial choices in either original or final intentions collides with the fact that such intentions are either irrecoverable because of their interiority or blurred by the interaction with other factors which shape the artistic production. Jerome McGann argues that the problem lies with a lingering Romantic conception of literary production, which posits a totally autonomous creative act. In fact, says McGann: «The fully authoritative text is... always one which has been socially produced; as a result, the critical standard for what constitutes authoritativeness cannot rest with the author and his intentions alone»¹¹.

The problematic nature of intentions becomes even more complicated when more than one version of a work exist, a situation which is proving to be much more common in Golden Age drama than our present editions yet indicate. There are two different versions of the third act of La dama duende¹²; Calderón also rewrote Guárdate del agua mansa once¹³ and reworked Casa con dos puertas mala es de guardar at least twice¹⁴. Some of Tirso's works appear in even more globally revised versions, as Harold Jones and Vern Williamsen have pointed out with relation to Amor no teme peligro and Los balcones de Madrid¹⁵. His autograph manuscript of the first part of Santa Juana presents a very different version of the play from that published in the Quinta Parte of 1636 and reprinted in all subsequent editions.

I suspect that on closer examination, we may find that other works have undergone substantial revisions which have been obscured by the editorial production of eclectic texts. Because our editorial procedures are inherited from classical scholarship which worked toward restoring lost originals, and because in most cases, we also lack an autograph manuscript of Golden Age texts, when faced with differing readings in early editions of the work, we generally assume that they are due to corrupt transmissions of one lost, authoritative original. Shakespearian scholars for many years worked on the same assumption about the quarto and folio editions of King Lear, and therefore produced a text which conflated readings from both. Recent research, however, indicates that in fact the 1608 quarto represents the play as Shakespeare originally wrote it, before its performance, while the 1623 folio represents a revision made two or three years later, after its first performance. The latter is said to be a more obviously theatrical text, from which Shakespeare cut some 300 lines, added about 100 other lines, reassigned several speeches, and streamlined the play's actions, removing some reflective passages. The 1986 Oxford edition of The Complete Works therefore prints both versions of the play, stating that each play has its own integrity, which conflation has distorted¹⁶. Stephen Orgel suggests that the problem is not limited to King Lear, and says that, «the notion of final or complete versions assumed by virtually all modern editors of Shakespeare is inconsistent with everything we know... about Renaissance theatrical practice»¹⁷.

The production of a new edition of Goethe's complete works has also produced a controversy about eclectic texts among German scholars, and an impressive argument by Hans Zeller for respecting the integrity of particular versions. He asks:

Zeller maintains that a text is, «a complex of elements which form a system of signs, both denoting (signifiant) and denoted (signifié)». Since it is a system, the work consists not of its elements in themselves but of the relationships among them»¹⁹. Adopting readings from different versions, while producing an authoritative text in one sense, violates the relationships which constitute each particular version.

Zeller also points out the different attitudes toward the text on the part of the reader, exegete or editor on the one hand, and the author on the other:

Furthermore, Zeller, like McGann, argues against the notion of totally autonomous aesthetic production. Writers write to be read, and they not only influence their public, but are influenced by it, an influence which is often reflected in the process of revision. This seems to have been the case with Shakespeare and King Lear, and it is equally true in the case of Tirso's Santa Juana. Textual history and the study of influence and reception are therefore inseparable, and both are ill served by the production of conflated texts. They may provide the reader with a smoother text, but it is a text which almost certainly never was on the stage. Although the differing sources of individual readings may be preserved in the scholarly apparatus, the reader almost inevitably responds to the text as a constituted, coherent whole; only the most self-critical editor remains actively aware that it is an artificial creation.

My proposal therefore is that when we encounter a text which exists in substantially different versions, those texts should be edited in multiple form, preferably on a facing-page format. This sort of edition would more honestly reflect the mode of existence of the texts, and encourage richer readings, more in tune with the flexible, interpretative life of drama, by keeping constantly before the reader the fluid state of the text and the differing effects of the «synonyms» (to use Zeller's term) chosen by the dramatist. Obviously, for economic reasons, this cannot become the general rule for all editions, even of such works. However, the availability of several dual version editions would encourage students of Golden Age drama to conceive of comedia texts not as consecrated unities, sprung whole like Minerva from the head of Zeus, but as scripts for performance, with some of the flexibility of clay, appropriately shaped into different vessels according to the occasion at hand²¹.

The manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional (Ms. Res 249) of Tirso's hagiographic trilogy, Santa Juana, provides clear evidence of such reshaping, both by Tirso himself and a generous handful of others. The first and the third parts are autograph, with the exception of one page in another hand in the first part, and five pages in other hands in the third part. Tirso signed both plays and dated them in Toledo, in May, 1613, and August, 1614, respectively. The second part is copied by two other hands, one of which was probably that of an autor de comedias, who also made a number of marginal notations in Part I and copied its one non-autograph page as well as one line in Part III. Parts I and II were published in significantly longer versions in the Quinta Parte of Tirso's plays in 1636; the third part found no publisher to teach it to «hazer pinitos» as Tirso said, until Cotarelo y Mori did so in 1907²². Although Cotarelo y Mori implied that the manuscript served as the basis for his edition of the first two parts as well, in fact he reproduced the Quinta Parte version, and did not even use the manuscript to fill in verses omitted from the Parte text. The integrity of version advocated by Zeller was thus preserved in his edition, if for pragmatic rather than philosophical reasons.

Cotarelo described the manuscript as «precioso»²³; Blanca de los Ríos depicted it with almost mystic fervor:

She must have found that Romantic image of the genius at work more attractive than the rather messy reality of the manuscript, however, for she then ignored the text of the manuscript and reproduced Cotarelo y Mori's Quinta Parte-based text.

She joined Juan Antonio Tamayo in attributing the very messiness of the manuscript to the pressure of the divine fury of inspiration. Tamayo said: «Se advierte que se trata de un original escrito con precipitación, en el que se ha tachado abundantemente e introducido profundas modificaciones. Por eso la grafía es más apresurada, irregular y nerviosa»²⁵. The mundane reality, however, as Wade pointed out after making a careful transcript for his doctoral dissertation²⁶, is that for the bulk of the manuscript of Part I, Tirso is copying his own previous work, a longer version of the play very like the text in the Quinta Parte. Several of the crossed-out lines are due not to inspired frenzy but to distraction -his eye jumped ahead a line or two in his «copy-text» and he then had to cross out the misplaced line.

What is the relationship, then, between the manuscript and the Quinta Parte? The latter is a very long play, over 3,800 lines; the former, as Tirso penned it, must have had approximately 3075 lines, of which some 2760 remain, because part or all of six folios were removed from the manuscript²⁷. The simplest explanation would be that Tirso was copying the version which would become the Parte text as he shortened and revised it for a different audience. Wade, however, made the classical assumption of an even longer lost original, imperfectly reflected in both extant states²⁸. Based on this assumption, and because the missing folios make it impossible to present the manuscript version as an independent text, Wade's never-published solution was a conflated text. It is thoughtfully and responsibly done, with sections incorporated from the Quinta Parte clearly marked, presumably to be printed as the intercalations to the Celestina sometimes are, in italics. However, it is an artificial creation which never could have existed, and which, had it become established as the canonical text of the work, would have obscured the true textual history of the play and the interesting light which it sheds on the mode of existence of Golden Age theatrical texts, and also on the attitude of the religious establishment toward the popular cult of saints.

The reason that the conflated text could never have existed on stage is that a careful reading of the manuscript and the Quinta Parte versions of Part I reveals that they reflect two quite different conceptions of the same work; the Quinta Parte text is not only much longer, it is also more complex, and we might say, more courtly, with substantial passages of culteranista and conceptista poetry. Tirso altered the manuscript version to make it much more direct and dramatic, even melodramatic, and gave greater weight to comic elements, as the following examples illustrate. The basic story of the trilogy is that of one Juana Vázquez from the Sagra of Toledo, the beautiful and devout young daughter of a villano rico. With miraculous assistance from a habit of St. Francis, she runs away from marriage to Francisco Loarte, a nobleman who has fallen in love with her, saying that she promised long ago to be the bride of Christ, and enters the Monasterio de la Cruz, which she make famous by her mystical experiences and inspired sermons, and the healing powers of the rosaries which Christ has blessed for her.

The first example, «Galgos los moços llamó», is a self-revealing complaint by Francisco Loarte's lackey Lillo.

In the Quinta Parte, the wit is more complex and subtle, and relates details of a lackey's procedures in serving an amorous hidalgo which we can imagine would entertain a courtly audience. The drastically shortened manuscript form is not only more direct in its humor, but also in expressing resentment of the poor servant against the rich.

In describing the appearance of the Virgen to the simple shepherdess who founded the Monasterio de la Cruz, Tirso eliminates from the manuscript both the concepto about the soul which pastures on prayer, and the luxurious description of the Virgen's dress.

While these two examples reduce complexity primarily by excision, Tirso also simplifies other passages without shortening them, which is more telling evidence that he was aiming not only at compression, but also at communicating with a different audience. The Parte version of the following song from a rural wedding seems to aim at the delicate pastoral imagery of a Gongorine letrilla while that of the manuscript is more popular in style.

Tirso also reworked the appearance of Doña Leonor, the faithful wife of the returning indiano who suspects him of courting another woman. In the Parte text, Leonor is going to venture out at night to find out more about his activities, to find the residence of the «Leocote³⁰ nueva» who has made her a «Clicie³¹ zelosa»; no such classical images of madness and grief appear in the manuscript. Here Doña Leonor states her fury directly and goes to confront her husband before the house where the supposed other woman lives. The change prepares a more dramatic contrast with the following scene in which Santa Juana also violates the social code by venturing out at night dressed as a man, not to pursue a faithless husband, but to become «the bride of Christ».

By simplifying the character of Juan Vázquez, downplaying his fatherly grief at losing his daughter to a convent and adding threats of violence, Tirso also heightens in the manuscript the melodrama surrounding the Santa's entry into the convent.

Finally, Tirso extends or improves certain sure crowd-pleasing comic passages in the manuscript. Because line length precludes fitting both versions on one page in this instance, the following text is the manuscript text only. The verses in italics are additions to this version; significant Quinta Parte variants are given as footnotes.

Although the alteration of the shorter Part II of Santa Juana (2729 verses in the Quinta Parte and 2534 in the manuscript) was less extensive, the changes have the same overall effect, of making the manuscript version a more «popular» text. The Quinta Parte text contains a lengthy conceptista comparison of the world to a book in a sermon of Santa Juana which the manuscript eliminates, while the latter version adds or expands several rather scabrous sexual passages related to the seduction of a villana by a young nobleman. For example, only in the manuscript version does the villana's former fiancé comment: «Io/no compro si están calados/ni la muger ni el melón» (lines 931-933).

How do we explain these two versions? The most logical explanation seems to be that Tirso wrote a first version of Part I, and possibly also Parts II and III for private performance, which he then shortened and simplified for an autor de comedias who wanted to take the plays on tour. The nature of the changes between the Quinta Parte and manuscript versions of Part I point toward adaptation for a courtly and a popular audience. Tirso paints a picture of such private performances of his plays in Los cigarrales de Toledo and the discussions following such plays show his awareness of the problem of finding the right length to please his audience. In that book, one spectator comments³⁵ after seeing El vergonzoso en palacio that at three hours, it was too long-and in fact, at over 3800 verses³⁶, that play and the Quinta Parte version of Santa Juana Part I are two of Tirso's longest dramas. Another spectator says that the two-hour performance of Como han de ser los amigos was too short³⁷. Furthermore, Luis Cabrera de Córdoba, in his Relaciones writes on June 28, 1614, that on the day of San Juan, the monarchs «volviéronse á la Huerta (del Duque de Lerma) para ver la comedia de la señora Juana que es cierta monja de ejemplar vida que hubo en un monasterio que llaman de la Cruz a quatro leguas de aquí»³⁸. Cotarelo says it must have been Part I or II, because the August 1614 date on Tirso's manuscript proves that Part III had not been written yet. However, we have seen that the 1613 dates on Parts I and II do not reflect the original date of composition for those parts, and it is equally possible that the manuscript of Part III, which is the same length as that we have calculated for the full manuscript Part I (although longer than either the Quinta Parte or manuscript version of Part II), is also an abbreviated version of a previously written play.

However these two versions of Santa Juana, Parts I and II, came into existence, the central fact for the editor is the presence of two clearly distinct and clearly authorial versions of the same play. The problem this poses is that of presenting its dual form to the reader in a way that will best illustrate the varying modes of existence of Golden Age drama as well as Tirso's attitudes toward his own material and his public. Because of the loss of several folios, the manuscript version of Part I cannot stand alone, so consecutive publication of the two versions is not feasible as it was in the case of King Lear, for example. As my samples indicate, I will therefore opt for a facing-page format, which will place each reader in the position vis-a-vis the text that a seventeenth-century autor de comedias often assumed -that of constructing a coherent text from incomplete or disparate versions of a work.

This brings us to the second challenge I believe the editor should try to meet, that of presenting the text as a script for performance. As editors, we are all looking for «authority» on which to ground our editions. Just as the word «author» is the root and center of the word «authority», so the dramatist is appropriately central in our concern. However, the Golden Age director / theater company owner is called an autor de comedias as well. Lope, Tirso, or Calderón may be the author of the text, but Baltasar Pinedo or Antonio del Prado or Pedro de la Rosa is also the creator, the «author» of the performance. Heretofore, the cuts and alterations made to a manuscript by an autor de comedias have generally been viewed only as corruptions³⁹ to be ignored or relegated to footnotes. However if we are to understand the way in which the drama really reached its public, we should present any significant evidence of the decisions of the autor to our readers as well. Hence the strange markings in the margins around the manuscript section of the above samples: they are an attempt, however unsatisfactory, to find a way to reflect the various cuts, and methods of excision⁴⁰, employed by the two or more autores who worked with this script, so that the reader can see which sections were considered solid, which were dubious, and which were clearly eliminated, at least in some performances.

Nor do these exhaust the forms of «authority» evidenced by this manuscript. Part I has also been considerably emended by a religious authority⁴¹. The censor wrote by the title «Este Título, y el que se pusiere en los carteles a la publicacion desta comedia se manda que sea conforme al libro di[cie]ndo, la sierua de Dios, [Sor] [Ju]ana de la cruz. y no l[a] [Sa]ncta Juana: y que en los ve[rs]os de la comedia, se reponga siempre Sor Juana en lugar de Santa Juana». His notation has been heavily crossed out, as have been his other such commentaries throughout the manuscript, probably by an autor de comedias. Paz y Meliá was able to decipher this first one quite accurately, but only one other censorial note could be deciphered visually. However, through experimentation with various photographic processes to separate the two ink colors, we have been able to bring the censor's observations, literally, back to light⁴². Along with his concern for the undue sanctification of Juana⁴³, he also objected strongly to passages which showed convent life or church figures in a poor light, or treated them irreverently, such as Lillo's extended comparison of a tavern with a hermitage, his description of a sumptuous dress as fit for the wife of a cardinal, or the presentation of an envious nun who attacks Juana in every way she can.

The censor's objections apparently had limited effect however; not only were they crossed out, but the autor repeatedly wrote «Dizese» in the margins by the cut passages. The censoring was done in Madrid; since the manuscript does reflect alterations made to accommodate the censor's objections, it is probable that his cuts were observed in that city, but that the offending passages were reinstated when the company took the work on tour⁴⁴.

Of more lasting effect was the self-censoring that Tirso had done in altering the Quinta Parte-like text to the manuscript version. Tirso's plays are roughly based on the history of the life and miracles of Santa Juana written by Fr. Antonio Daza, first published in 1610. This very popular book ran into trouble with the Inquisition, and its second edition in 1613 reflected their objections. One of the scenes which disappeared from the second edition was a scene of heavenly competition between St. Francis and St. Dominic, each trying to convince Juana to join his order. This episode constituted the tramoya-based climax of Act II in the Parte version of the first part, but Tirso removed it from the manuscript version, which he ended instead with Juana's «desposorio» to Jesus, for which the Virgen served as madrina. Unfortunately, only the first verses of the scene remain because the last page of the act is missing. This may have been due to wear and tear; act endings were frequently lost or recopied in another hand. Alternatively, it may have been «censored» by an autor through the supremely effective method of ripping off the page. This was certainly the fate of another spectacular scene near the end of the third act. As it appears in the Quinta Parte, this scene involves the transportation of Juana to heaven for a conversation with her Ángel de la Guarda over the power of her prayers to relieve the suffering of souls in purgatory. The censor had also objected to the scene, saying that it had to be removed because «no está en el libro y no es lícita»; his objection was crossed out as usual, but the autor apparently had his own problems with the scene, because «mucho» is written in the margin and a folio removed.

However talented the dramatist and judicious an autor, nevertheless, the fate of a play always rests finally in the hands of the actors, as Tirso well knew and says in Los Cigarrales:

Obviously, an editor striving to convey a sense of the play in performance must include as much information as possible about the cast(s) involved in its production. In the case of Santa Juana, the manuscript shows us that at least by the time he wrote Part III, Tirso was working with certain actors and actresses in mind, because he wrote in their names by the list of characters at the beginning of the play. Other hands have written in two complete or partial cast lists both for Part I and Part III, with María de Morales playing Juana in all cases. Since most of the actors and actresses were associated in 1613 and 1617 with Baltasar Pinedo, we can deduce that Tirso made the manuscript for him, and that it was his company which took it on tour around Spain. We can follow the gira which the plays made through the series of censuras on its end pages, and we can even recreate some of the musical and scenic effects added to the text in a series of jottings on the manuscript. One «Juan Jiménez», who played a variety of minor roles in the plays, left us a touching, rough sketch of a cross and shrine which he constructed, with the comment: «Labrose esta + [cruz] y umilladero a a [sic] 9 de enero fue su escultor Ju[an] Jimenez poeta de baltasar pinedo», telling us in no uncertain terms that he considered his contribution too to be an important addition to the life of the play⁴⁶.

A considerable amount of information has survived about actors and actresses of the seventeenth century, but scattered in a variety of sources, archival and printed, which make its recovery difficult. John Varey has proposed the organization of an international team effort to compile a biographical dictionary such as those which exist for the English and French theaters of the period⁴⁷. Until such a project is accomplished, however, the editor will have to comb a variety of sources. A list of books containing significant amounts of information about theater companies is included as an appendix to this article, as a starting point for those new to the field⁴⁸. The majority of the relevant information in certain archives, particularly the Archivo de la Villa de Madrid and the Archivo del Palacio, has been published⁴⁹, but the books listed will suggest other archives which might yield new information to the editor with sufficient time and patience to follow the leads they provide.

In writing the story of Santa Juana, Tirso created a very human story of the life of a «saint» -a saint who would have wished to dwell always in communion with saints, angels, and her heavenly «husband», but who was constantly recalled to earth to the society of village and convent life. Although it probably would not help her case at the Vatican, we might venture to suppose that it was her down-to-earth spiritual presence which was responsible for the minor miracle of the preservation of the manuscript of this work, so rich in evidence of the collective life of Golden Age drama. Whether one wishes to attribute its survival to Juana's «Ángel de la Guarda» or to the random working of chance, the manuscript offers ideal material for the preparation of an alternative form of edition, one which focuses on the drama not as the isolated product of divine inspiration, but as a complex social process of human communication.

• Asensio, Eugenio. Itinerario del entremés. Desde Lope de Rueda a Quiñones de Benavente. 2d. rev. ed., Madrid, 1971.
• Cortez, Narciso Alonso. El teatro en Valladolid. Madrid, 1925.
• Cotarelo y Mori, Emilio. Actores famosos del siglo XVII: Sebastián de Prado y su muger Bernarda Ramírez. Madrid, 1916.
• Díaz de Escovar, Narciso. Anales de la escena española. [1626-1639] Madrid, 1914.
• ——. Anales del teatro español correspondientes a los años 1581 a 1625. Madrid, 1913.
• ——. Siluetas escénicas del pasado. Colección de artículos históricos de costumbres, anécdotas, biografías, bibliografías, etc., del Teatro español. Barcelona, n. d.
• Díaz de Escovar, Narciso, and Francisco de P. Lasso de la Vega. Historia del teatro español. Comediantes-Escritores-Curiosidades escénicas. Con un apéndice sobre los teatros Catalán y valenciano. Barcelona, 1924.
• Haley, George, ed. Diario de un estudiante de Salamanca. Salamanca, 1977. Diary of a student from Florence, which names 188 comedias staged in Salamanca between 1604 and 1607.
• Juliá Martínez, Eduardo. «El teatro en Valencia de 1630 a 1640», Boletín de la Real Academia Española 2 (1915) 527-547.
• ——. «El teatro en Valencia», BRAE 4 (1917) 56-83 and BRAE 13 (1926) 318-341.
• López Martínez, Celestino. Teatros y comediantes sevillanos del siglo XVI. Estudio documental. Sevilla, 1940.
• Merimée, Henri. Spectacles et comédiens à Valencia (1580-1630). Toulouse, 1913.
• Pérez Pastor, Cristóbal. Documentos para la biografía de D. Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Madrid, 1905.
• ——. Nuevos datos acerca del histrionismo español en los siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid, 1901.
• ——. Nuevos datos acerca del histrionismo español en los siglos XVI y XVII. Segunda serie. Bordeaux, 1914.
• Ramírez de Arellano, Rafael. El teatro en Córdoba. Ciudad Real, 1912.
• Rennert, Hugo Albert. The Spanish Stage in the Time of Lope de Vega. New York, 1909. The subsequent re-edition omits the appendix of actors and actresses.
• San Ramón y Fernández, Francisco de Borja. Lope de Vega, los cómicos toledanos y el poeta sastre. Serie de documentos inéditos de los años 1590-1615. Madrid, 1935.
• Sánchez, Arjona, José. Noticias referentes a los anales del teatro en Sevilla desde Lope de Rueda hasta fines del siglo XVII. Sevilla, 1898.
• ——. El teatro en Sevilla en los siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid, 1887.
• Shergold, N. D. A History of the Spanish Stage from Medieval Times until the End of the Seventeenth Century. Oxford, 1967.
• Shergold, N. D., and J. E. Varey. Los autos sacramentales en Madrid en la época de Calderón, 1637-1681. Estudio y documentos. Madrid, 1961. These publications on the auto sacramental and all their volumes on the theater in the Fuentes series are rich in information on theater companies.
• ——. «Autos sacramentales en Madrid hasta 1636», Estudios Escénicos (Barcelona, Instituto del Teatro) 4 (1959) 51-98.
• ——. «Documentos sobre los autos sacramentales hasta 1636», Revista de la Biblioteca. Archivo y Museo de Madrid 24 (1955) 203-313.
• ——. Genealogía, origen y noticias de los comediantes de España. Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España, 2. London, 1985. The most comprehensive source. An edition of an anonymous manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional, with a helpful introduction and index.
• ——. Representaciones palaciegas: 1603-1699. Estudio y documentos. Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España, 1. London, 1982.
• ——. Teatros y comedias en Madrid: 1687-1699. Estudio y documentos. Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España, 6. London, 1979.
• Varey, J. E., and N. D. Shergold. Teatros y comedias en Madrid: 1600-1650. Estudio y documentos. Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España, 3. London, 1971.
• ——. Teatros y comedias en Madrid: 1651-1665. Estudio y documentos. Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España, 4. London, 1973.
• ——. Teatros y comedias en Madrid: 1666-1687. Estudio y documentos. Fuentes para la historia del teatro en España, 5. London, 1974.