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nature and society — marriage. Tirso has championed, not woman, but the contemporary understanding of the social order and the natural scheme of things. NOTES 1 Las mujeres de Tirso. Conferencia leída en el Ateneo de Madrid (Madrid: Impr. de B. Rodríguez, 1910), p. 26. 2 "Concepto del honor y de la mujer en Tirso de Molina," in Revista Estudios (Madrid , 1949), p. 655. 3 Ibid., p. 595. 4 Ibid., p. 594. sExposición del libro de Job, BAE, XXXVII, eh. xiv, p. 359. 4Ed. Gerald E. Wade (New York: Scribners , 1969), w. 153-56. All subsequent references are to this edition. 7 Treachery, or tricking his victims, is perhaps an even stronger drive in Don Juan. Cf. the recurrence of burla, burlar, and burlador. 8 "The Spanish Drama of the Golden Age," in The Great Playwrights, ed. E. Bendey (New York: Doubleday, 1970), pp. 681-82. 9 Ibid., pp. 42-43. 10 Secret betrothal had been frequent throughout the earlier period and, though illicit, was considered legal and binding by both civil and ecclesiastical authorities. Only recently declared invalid by the Council of Trent, it still survived as a literary convention, and it seems that Tirso's heroines in particular surrender their virtue on a promise of marriage. See Justina Ruiz de Conde, El amor y el matrimonio secreto en los libros de caballerías (Madrid: Aguilar, 1948). " Pedro Pérez de la Sala, "Costumbres españolas en el siglo XVII," Revista de Espa ña, Vol. 135 (1891), p. 208. 12See Melveena McKendrick, "The mujer esquiva — A Measure of the Feminist Sympathies of Seventeenth-century Spanish Dramatists ," Hispanic Review, 40 (1972), 177-78; and my unpublished dissertation, "The mujer varonil in the Theater of the Siglo de Oro" (University of Pennsylvania, 1969). 13See Bruce W. Wardropper, "El Burlador de Sevilla: A Tragedy of Errors," Philological Quarterly, 36 (1957), p. 69, n. 13. 14Edward Wilson and Duncan Moir, The Golden Age: Drama 1492-1700 (London, New York: Barnes & Noble, 1971), p. 91. THE QUESTION OF MEANS AND MAGIC IN ALARCON'S LA PRUEBA DE LAS PROMESAS Charles E. Perry, Hamline University In La prueba de las promesas, the magician Don Illán creates an illusion in which his daughter's favored suitor, Don Juan, is the unwitting subject. The behavior exhibited by young Juan during the illusion becomes increasingly reprehensible, for not only does he fail to keep his promises, but furthermore shows himself to be an ungrateful and vicious person. As a consequence of Juan's scandalous behavior the magician 's daughter Doña Blanca is lost to a rival, the bland but patient Don Enrique . The exposition of the title theme, of putting promises to the test, is carried out in straightforward action to its expected conclusion: Juan is punished because he acted badly, Enrique is rewarded for his constancy. However, despite the generally uncomplicated movement of the play toward this unhappy dénouement for Don Juan, there is a disturbing quality to Don Illán's behavior which casts a shadow upon the supposedly clear vision of character the "test" is assumed to reveal. I propose to examine Don Illán's manipulation of the dramatic action on both the "real" and "illusory" levels of the play in order to determine whether the prueba so dexterously administered by the magician can in fact provide a valid statement, accepted by the other characters at the play's end, of Juan's true nature.1 14 From the opening scene, Don Illán's position regarding a marriage for his daughter is clear: he wishes Blanca to marry Enrique for the sake of establishing peace among the two feuding families . The magician lets Blanca know that her hand in wedlock will be the means ("el medio") to the attainment of this important end (w. 7-8 ).2 Illán's choice of words in describing Enrique's interest in Blanca is frankly materialistic : "vendernos la paz procura/ a precio de tu belleza," w. 11-12. Certainly Illán's attitude is hardheaded; he is practical and business-minded. He is, after all, a father anxious for a good match for his daughter, hoping in the bargain to bring about...

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