“As Greek tragedy ” says a Spanish writer, “was composed from the crumbs that fell from Homer's table, so the Spanish drama owed its earliest forms to La Celestina (1499).”

Fernando de Rojas' tragi-comedy – which has also been called “a novel in dialogue” – runs to about three hundred pages in the James Mabbe translation, here adapted to the stage by Eric Bentley in a five-act, 93-page version.

The central and pervasive situation is a simple one: a dirty old woman is helping a courtly young gentleman to seduce a girl. The wonder of the thing lies in the art with which Fernando do Rojas derives, from such commonplace materials, a towering tragedy – or rather, tragi-comedy.

About the Author

Professor Michael Stokes was emeritus Professor of Greek, University of Durham; formerly Lecturer in Greek, University of Edinburgh and Associate Professor of Classics at Cornell University. His publications include One and Many in Presocratic Philosophy (Center for Hellenic Studies, 1971) and Plato's Socratic Conversations (Athlone Press, London & Johns Hopkins University Press, 1986).

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