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Tirso de Molina

Personal information
Surname: Tirso de Molina
First name:
Commonly known as: Tirso
Other versions of the name: Fray Gabriel Téllez
Pseudonyms: Tirso de Molina is the pseudonym for Fray Gabriel Téllez
Born: ?1579, Madrid, Spain
Died: ?20 February 1648
Biography

Tirso de Molina (the pseudonym of the friar Gabriel Téllez) was born in Madrid to Andrés López and Juana Téllez, most likely in 1579 as baptismal records date his christening as 29 Marc... (Read more...)

Further information

Tirso de Molina is one of the most-studied playwrights of Golden Age Spain, along with Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca and Miguel de Cervantes. Scholarship on Tirso is heavily weight... (Read more...)

Themes

Although Tirso de Molina was a monk, his plays are not always concerned with religion, but employ a wide range of social and secular themes in order to entertain and educate his audienc... (Read more...)

Style

Tirso de Molina was a self-proclaimed follower of Lope de Vega, so in many ways his style is similar to Lope’s as he is directly inspired by Lope’s playwriting formula. He defends the ‘... (Read more...)

Plays in the database
Useful reading and websites
  • Albrecht, Jane. 1994. Irony and Theatricality in Tirso de Molina. Ottawa, Dovehouse

  • Arellano, Ignacio, ed. 2004. Tirso de Molina en la Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico. Cuadernos de Teatro Clásico, 18. Madrid, Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico (in Spanish)

  • Florit Durán, Francisco. 2003. ‘Tirso de Molina’. In Historia del teatro español, ed. Javier Huerta Calvo, pp. 989-1023. Madrid, Gredos (in Spanish)

  • Halkhoree, P. R. K. 1989. Social and Literary Satire in the Comedies of Tirso de Molina, eds. José M. Ruano de la Haza and Henry W. Sullivan. Ottawa, Dovehouse

  • Hesse, E.W. 1964. ‘The Incest Motif in Tirso’s La venganza de Tamar’, Hispania, 47, 268-76

  • Kennedy, Ruth Lee. 1974. Studies in Tirso, I: The Dramatist and his Competitors, 1620-26. Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina

  • Oakley, R. J. 1994. Tirso de Molina, El condenado por desconfiado. Critical Guides to Spanish Texts. London, Grant and Cutler

  • Rogers, Daniel. 1977. Tirso de Molina, El burlador de Sevilla. Critical Guides to Spanish Texts. London, Grant and Cutler

  • Sullivan, H. W. 1976. Tirso de Molina and the Drama of the Counter-Reformation. Amsterdam, Rodopi

  • Thacker, Jonathan W. 1995. ‘Comedy’s Social Compromise: Tirso’s Marta la piadosa and the Refashioning of Role’, Bulletin of the Comediantes, 47, 267-89

  • Thacker, Jonathan W. 2008. ‘Tirso’s Tamar Untamed: A Lesson of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Production’. In The Comedia in English: Translation and Performance, eds. Susan Paun de García and Donald R. Larson, pp. 164-76. Woodbridge, Tamesis

Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 16 May 2012.

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