Works

Information about the work and context of creation

Ana Caro's comedies were written following the rules of the comedia nueva or "new comedy", created by Lope de Vega. Out of those that have survived to our days, Valor, agravio y mujer and El conde Partinuplés can be found. In both, the playwright conveys a message in favour of women, although in the chivalric play she does so in a much more veiled way, since it is a dramatisation of the romance of the same name, Portonopeus de Blois (1188), translated and published in Spain in 1497.

Using the original plot, Caro wrote El conde Partinuplés, a comedy of great scenographic elaboration -of appearances and stage machinery- which allowed her to recreate on stage the magical atmosphere that already appeared in the novel.

The comedy El conde Partinuplés begins when the courtiers demand that Rosaura, Empress of Constantinople, daughter of Aureliano and Rosimunda, who have already died, get married. They explain that the empire needs a successor. Rosaura replies that she has avoided marriage because of a dire astrological forecast. Persuaded by her vassals, Rosaura agrees to marry within a year. With the help of the wizard Aldora, she searches for the best candidate, using a magic mirror. Of the various candidates, she chooses Count Partinuplés, although he already has a lady, Lisbella. Thanks to the arts of Aldora, she manages to lure him to the palace and there, using the plot of the invisible mistress, she tries to prove his fidelity and his word. With Aldora's help, everything is resolved, and Empress Rosaura marries Count Partinuplés.

It is, therefore, a chivalric comedy printed in 1653 and probably performed between the end of the third decade and the beginning of the fourth decade of the 17th century. We have no specific news of the performances of this comedy, except for the one at the Almagro International Classical Theatre Festival in 2019, despite the fame it had earned, as attested in a dialogue of La corsaria catalana, by Matos Fragoso:

“LEÓN: ¿Qué comedias traes?

AUTOR: …Famosas

 de las plumas milagrosas,

de España…

si escuchar quieres

los títulos, estos son 

[...]
La bizarra Armesinda, que es

 del ingenioso Cervantes;

 Los dos confusos amantes; 

El conde Partinuplés”.

Ana Caro was one of the first European women writers by trade. She belongs to a generation of Baroque women writers of great influence, but little recognition, who were part of the querelle des femmes. They vindicated their right to education and culture for women. One example is María de Zayas, novelist and playwright, with whom she was a friend, as well as Countess of Paredes, notable mother of female writers. It was also the countess who published works by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, a contemporary of hers and the true pinnacle of the Baroque, as well as the playwright of Los empeños de una casa and Amor es más laberinto. The playwright Feliciana Enríquez de Guzmán, also from this period, created Las tres gracias mohosas, which did not follow Lope de Vega's precepts. Ana Caro was also a contemporary of the English writers Mary Astell and Aphra Behn, a comedy writer and the first novelist in English, and of the Italian Lucrezia Marinella and the French Marie de Gournay, all representatives of the querelle des femmes. The relationships between them form female networks of literary creation in the 17th century.
 
 

Indications

She can be studied in Spanish language and literature and world literature.

She belongs to the universal classics of the Spanish baroque and the querelle des femmes

Documents