Comedias, Parte XI by Lope de Vega (review)

BOOK REVIEWS CALÍOPE Vol. 19, No. 1, 2014: 217-237 Lope de Vega, Comedias, Parte XI, Coords. Laura Fernández and Gonzalo Pontón. 2 vols. Madrid: Gredos, 2012. ISBN (complete work): 978-84-89790-00-I. Writing a review of a new ProLope edition of one of Lope’s Partes is both a daunting task given the hefty weight of the volumes and an obligation given the quality of the work done by their coordinators and editors and the contribution these editions make to comedia studies. That merit certainly accrues in the Parte XI, the first issued by the series’s new editorial home, Gredos. The two volumes of this Parte were assembled and overseen by Laura Fernández and Gonzalo Pontón, both experienced ProLope coordinators, and include a distinguished list of editors of the individual plays. Fernández and Pontón lead off the volumes with an editorial history of the Oncena Parte, published in Madrid and Barcelona in 1618, the third in a series begun with the Novena in 1617 whose titles proclaimed the plays to have been “sacadas de sus originales.” In the 1617 prologue, Lope had complained about publication by others of comedias he didn’t recognize as his and about the failure of a suit against Francisco de Ávila for publishing the Séptima and Octava Partes. Fernández and Pontón cite Lope’s letters to the Duque de Sessa as proof that he enlisted the help of his patron in securing originals or reliable copies of his plays for the 1617- 1618 editions. They maintain that Lope was more concerned with controlling the circulation of his works and securing his literary reputation than with monetary gain, which went primarily to the publishers. Fernández and Pontón relate the prologue of this Parte to literary debates of the era, to the contemporary republication of El peregrino en su patria with an expanded list of his comedias, and to the Expostulatio Spongiae reply to Torres Rámila’s attack against Lope in the Spongia. In the prologue, Lope’s personified theater addresses to REVIEWS 218 its readers his complaints against memoriones and booksellers who sell imperfect manuscript copies of plays. He assures his readers that these plays are from Lope’s borradores and thus are not a “pepitoria poética” of “zánganos” who steal honey wrought from many flowers. He offers the plays for the entertainment of those who could not see them on his stage and for savored rereading by those who have. Fernández and Pontón clearly define their editorial procedures, calling for the conscientious listing of textual variants from all witnesses, including classic editions such as those of Hartzenbusch, Menéndez y Pelayo, and Cotarelo as evidence of a play’s textual history, irrespective of their value in establishing the more-or-less original text. They specify that annotation of individual editions should be limited, geared toward Siglo de Oro students and experts, eschewing dictionary definitions from Covarrubias or the Diccionaro de Autoridades and explanation of well-known motifs. Readers unfamiliar with the ProLope Parte editions should note that the bibliography for the entire Parte is included at the end of the second volume, in this case, vol. II, pp. 967-1020. The plays and editors are: Volume I--El perro del hortelano, Paola Laskaris; El acero de Madrid, Luis Gómez Canseco; Los ramilletes de Madrid, Elizabeth Wright; Obras son amores, Carlos Mota; Servir a señor discreto, José Enrique Laplana; El príncipe perfecto, Judith Farré Vidal; Volume II-- El amigo hasta la muerte, Josefa Badía Herrera; La locura por la honra, Florence D’Artois; El mayordomo de la duquesa de Amalfi, Teresa Ferrer Valls; El arenal de Sevilla, Manuel Cornejo; La fortuna merecida, Ana Isabel Sánchez; and El bautismo del príncipe de Marruecos, Gonzalo Pontón. One review cannot possibly do justice to all these plays and their editing. All the editors provide approximate dates for the plays, which range from 1601-03 to c. 1615; brief textual descriptions of the editions, including sueltas and manuscripts; sources, plot summaries, and synopses of versification. All base their editions on the Madrid...