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Ana Caro de Mallén

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Ana Caro de Mallén is a poet and playwright of the Spanish Golden Age. She was born in 1590 in either Seville or Granada and died in Seville on 6 November 1646.[1]

Life

Her full name is Ana María Caro de Mallén y Torres. Her parents were Gabriel Caro de Mallén and Ana María de Torres. They were actually her adopted parents, since she was born as a morisco slave. It is thought that she was the sister of Don Juan Caro de Mallén y Soto, born in Granada.

Career

Caro de Mallén's career took off in 1628 when she published poetry as well as studies on festivals and cultural activities. She had moved to Madrid by 1637 when she published Contexto de las reales fiestas madrileñas del Buen Retiro. She was a friend of the famous novelist Maria de Zayas and was recognized by many of her male counterparts including Juan de Matos Fragoso and Luis Vélez de Guevara. She earned money from some of her works of poetry and from her theater and is thus considered one of the first professional women writers [2] Ana Caro was the author of two religious plays (in Spanish, autos sacramentales) as well as a number of entremeses, which are short interlude plays placed between acts of comedias. Two of her entremeses survive, A loa sacramental and Coloquio entre dos. Only two of Caro de Mallén's full-length plays are known today, El conde partinuplés[3] and Valor, agravio y mujer (Courage, Betrayal, and a Woman Scorned).[4]

El conde Partinuplés

Although El conde Partinuplés was severely criticized up to the last decade of the twentieth century,[5]it has undergone a thorough revaluation. While some believe the play challenges the patriarchal tradition,[6] others reject this claim. The play seems to have been performed in Madrid around 1637. Although based on a popular book of chivalry,[7] it also includes numerous echoes of Pedro Calderón de la Barca's plays, particularly those published in the first part of his works (1636).[8]

Writing Style

Being that Caro de Mallén was a poet, a poetic style of writing shone through in her dramas. She was known for writing dialogue that included single stanza verse shifts between characters that were made up largely of exchanges of metaphor. Many consider the bantering style of Caro de Mallén's plays witty. The majority of her plays include a wide range of characters, from servant characters who speak in low-brow humor to characters born of nobility. Through her comedic plays Caro de Mallén made comments on the social and political realities of 17th century Spain. Popular thematic ideas that are present in Caro de Mallén's work are revenge, honor, intrigue, and love triangles.[9]

References

  1. ^ Juana Escabias, "Ana María Caro Mallén de Torres, una esclava en los corrales de comedias del siglo XVII," Epos. Revista de Filologia 28 (2012)
  2. ^ Lola Luna. "Ana Caro, una escritora ‘de oficio’ del Siglo de Oro," Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Jan 1,1995; 72, 1, pp. 11-26.
  3. ^ "El Conde Partinuplés - Out of the Wings". www.outofthewings.org. Retrieved 2019-03-08.
  4. ^ "Valor, agravio y mujer - Out of the Wings". www.outofthewings.org. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
  5. ^ “the play is extremely bad,” Melveena McKendrick, Woman and Society in the Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: A Study of the Mujer Varonil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974, p. 172
  6. ^ “the dramaturga’s desire to articulate a distinctly female voice, and to challenge, rather than merely echo, male voices of the patriarchal tradition” Christopher Weimer, “El conde Partinuplés and Calderón’s La vida es sueño: Protofeminism and Heuristic Imitation,” Bulletin of the Comediantes 52 (2000): 123-46.
  7. ^ Judith A. Whitenack, "Ana Caro's Partinuplésand the Chivalric Tradition," Engendering the Early Modern Stage. Women Playwrights in the Spanish Empire, eds. Valerie Hegstrom and Amy R. Williamsen. New Orleans: University Press of the South, 1999: 51-74.
  8. ^ Frederick A. de Armas, “Ecos y reescrituras de Calderón en El conde Partinuplés de Ana Caro: La gran Cenobia, La dama duende y La vida es sueño,” Anuario calderoniano13 (2020): 229-248.
  9. ^ Lehfeldt, Elizabeth A. (1998-08-01). "Review of Soufas, Teresa Scott, ed., Women's Acts: Plays by Women Dramatists of Spain's Golden Age". www.h-net.org. Retrieved 2017-03-05.
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