Abstract

Abstract:

La adúltera penitente, a hagiographic comedia attributed to the collaboration of three noted playwrights active in the mid-seventeenth century (Juan de Matos Fragoso, Jerónimo de Cáncer, and Agustín Moreto), envelopes the motif of the penitent sinner in a series of comic plot twists. This article begins with an examination of the textual cruxes presented by the two extant versions of the comedia, pondering the implications of variants between two textual witnesses—one print and one manuscript—for our understanding of the material history of dramatic compositions at all phases of the creative process, from composition, to staging by professional theater companies, and print publication. In turn, I contemplate the intervention of censors in response to the decidedly profane and sexually charged plot of the comedia. Other points of analysis relate to the information we can glean about the staging of divine intervention in hagiographic dramas and to the conceptions of authorship in the case of dramatic works that took shape as collaborative compositions.

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