Out of the Wings

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No hay burlas con el amor (c.1635), Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Titles
English title: Love Is No Laughing Matter
Date written: c. 1635
First publication date: 1650
First production date: 1635
Keywords: morality > honour, identity > class/social standing, family > brothers/sisters, power > inter-personal/game play, family > parents and children, love > desire, love > relationships
Genre and type: comedy
Pitch

It’s a case of unlikely lovers: he’s anti-love and uses women only for a bit of fun, while she’s lost in books and uses such lofty vocabulary her family needs a dictionary to understand her. When his friend convinces him to ‘pretend’ to love her, the trickster finds himself tricked, as ‘only a fool makes a fool of love’ (Calderón 2011: 91-3)).

Synopsis

The first act begins with a classic master-servant inversion. Alonso’s servant, Moscatel, is in love, to the disgust of his master who nearly fires him for daring to get into such a sta... (Read more...)

Sources

Humbert (1858) makes the argument that Calderón was influenced by Molière’s play Les femmes savants, although other critics may disagree, as the dates may not support this theory. Quev... (Read more...)

Critical response

This play has been neglected by critics in recent years, though it received a flurry of attention with the publication of two translations in the 1980s. Boswell’s 2011 production (at th... (Read more...)

Editions
  • Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 1650. No hay burlas con el amor. In Parte quarenta y dos de comedias de diferentes autores. Zaragoza, Juan de Ybar

  • Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. 1981. No ha... (Read more...)

Useful readings and websites
  • Arellano, Ignacio. 1983. ‘El sentido cómico de No hay burlas con el amor’. In Actas del Congreso Internacional sobre Calderón y el Teatro Español del Siglo de Oro’, ed. Luciano García Lorenzo, pp. 365-80. Madrid, CSIC (in Spanish)

  • Atkinson, W. C. 1927. ‘Studies in Literary Decadence: II. La comedia de capa y espada’, Bulletin of Spanish Studies 4, 80-9.

  • Cavendish, Dominic. 2011. ‘The Phoenix of Madrid / Iphigenia, Ustinov Studio, Bath, review’, The Telegraph, 17 October http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-reviews/8832607/The-Phoenix-of-Madrid-Iphigenia-Ustinov-Studio-Bath-review.html [accessed 31 March 2012]

  • DeArmas, F. A. 1988. ‘Love Is No Laughing Matter (No hay burlas con el amor)’, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 65, 4, 411-12

  • Humbert, C. 1858. ‘Das Urteil des Herrn von Schack über Molière’s Femmes savantes’, Archif für das Studium der neuern Sprachen und Literatur 23, 63-99 (in German)

    [referenced by Cruickshank and Page in Calederón 1986]

  • Quintero, M. C. 1987. ‘Demystifying Convention in Calderón, No hay burlas con el amor’, Romance Notes 27, 3, 247-55

  • Roman, D. 1991. ‘Spectacular Women: Sites of Gender Strife and Negotiation in Calderón, No hay burlas con el amor and on the Early-Modern Spanish Stage’, Theatre Journal 43, 4, 445-56

  • Rull, E. 1982. ‘No hay burlas con el amor’, Revista de Literatura 44, 87, 167-8

  • Soler, Patricia. 2009. ‘Love Is No Laughing Matter’ review. Comedia Performance 6, 1, 216-19

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

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