Four Loas and Their Data on Actors and Actresses

caused Amadis's, and her, suffering. In this "mundo d'engaño" the role of the Donzella de Dinamarca is to be the bearer of truth itself. The truth she proclaims brings with it exoneration , and a happy end to the tragicomedy . In the same way the poetic image is given the function of bearing the metaphysical interrogation. We may say, then, that of the two chivalric tragicomedies Don Duardos investigates chiefly problems related to identity, and Amadís de Gaula, problems related to the nature of truth. Identity and truth, two of the greatest riddles of metaphysics! Most philosophers today have—with reason —little use for metaphysics. But the —meaningless?—questions of metaphysics continue to plague the nonphilosophers , and especially the poets. No poet, no poetry can solve these vast problems, any more than a philosopher can. But a good poet, a good poem, can partially illuminate them. Within the artificial world of a poem — or a drama — some metaphysical uncertainties may be resolved to the satisfaction at least of those who inhabit that particular fictional world. And to the degree that we, the readers , permit ourselves to accept as valid that world which is the result of a poet's intuition, to that degree our metaphysical anxieties may be reduced. Gil Vicente, knowing little of any theories of artistic creation, turned spontaneously — guided, if at all, as we have said, by God, a Muse, or a subconscious drive—to the dramatic formula which his predecessor Juan del Encina had deduced from the Officium Pastorum tradition. The necessity to overlay this raw material with a metaphysical pattern dismayed him not at all. In the tragicomedies of Don Duardos and Amadís de Gaula two more firm links were added to the strong chain which was being forged, the chain of the Spanish national drama. Four Loas and Their Data on Actors and Actresses Gerald E. Wade, University of Tennessee In Cotarelo's Colección de entremeses , Volume II,1 there are several loas that provide extensive information about some of the actors and actresses in the List with which Rennert concluded his Spanish Stage.2 We shall examine four of the loas. The first of these (number 210 on Cotarelo's page 500) is entitled Loa con que empezó Lorenzo Hurtado en Madrid la segunda vez. Cotarelo, in Volume I of his Colección, page xlva, note, dates the loa as of 1631. We shall see that this date is substantially in error. At its heading the loa has a list of the members of the cast that recited it. Of the nine actors and actresses named, only two, Lorenzo Hurtado, the autor, and Inés de Hita are named in full. Rennert, however, furnishes enough information to make easy the identification of five of the other names, and relatively certain that of the remaining two. The cast is as follows, rearranged in alphabetized order: Bernardo (de Medrano?) Gabriel Cintor Inés de Hita, wife of Pinelo below Lorenzo Hurtado, the autor Pedro de Linares Juana Margarita de Hita, the daughter of Pinelo and Inés Francisco Pinelo Antonio Pinero (Juan de?) Vargas The above were of course not only the cast for the loa but were also the members of Hurtado's company for the presentation of comedias in late 1643 or early 1644. This date is yet to be established, but it will be deduced clearly from our material to follow. Rennert's data on Hurtado have nothing about the names of his company as a group for '43-'44, so our loa's lines will provide additions to Rennert's information about them. It may reasonably be assumed that a member of his company, surely larger than the loa's cast above, would be Francisca Bazán, Hurtado's wife. Another member was probably Isabel Antonia, wife of Pinero. As we check the names of the loa's cast against Rennert's List, we find no detail that he offers about them that will help to date the loa exactly. (We omit here the itemized data that Rennert offers for each name.) As a consequence, we turn to the lines of the loa itself, and in...