This play was recently "discovered" by North American academia and has since been studied and incorporated into the general "canon" of Spanish language literature. This is significant because the canon, and especially the early modern portion of the canon, is mostly comprised of works written by men (and the occasional remarkable woman, like Sor Juana or Teresa de Ávila). Some have thought that this is because, by and large, women didn't write much literature (plays, novels, poems) back in those days; others have thought that it's simply that their works weren't widely distributed, or that they were obscured by a male-dominated literary world. Whichever the case, here's a play that was written by a woman sometime around 1630 or 1640, a work that was forgotten for centuries and that only recently has been recuperated, republished, and made available to those with special interest in Spanish Golden Age literature. It's not known whether this play was ever actually performed, but there are some historical documents that show that Ana Caro was a well-known dramatist whose works were held in high esteem and who had a great deal of success in literary concourses, often taking first prize. This is considered her most significant work.

It begins with two damsels in distress: Estela and Lisarda are out in the woods on a hunting trip, and they're overtaken by a pair of bandits who want to abduct them and have their way with them. Luckily, Don Juan is passing through the area and he's able to save them. Shortly after, the nobleman Don Fernando shows up and thanks Don Juan for his heroism. They chat for a while about this and that, and they hit it off to the point where Don Juan feels comfortable confiding in Don Fernando. He explains that he's something of a player, and that he's arrived to Flanders (which was a Spanish colony at the time) leaving a trail of wronged women behind him. There was one woman in particular, a very beautiful and virtuous one, to whom he gave his promise of marriage in Seville before running away without saying goodbye. Although the dating of this play is somewhat imprecise, it seems clear that it was written after El burlador de Sevilla, and this Don Juan can be thought of as a representation of a trickster that was already well-known by Spanish audiences.

Then the scene shifts and we meet Leonor, who's dressed as a man who will be named Leonardo and who's discussing her plans with her servant, Ribete. Actually, she explicitly states that he's accompanying her not as her servant but as her friend, which is rather interesting for a play written back when social classes mixed about like oil and water. She's come to Flanders to avenge an injustice done to her by a certain Don Juan, and the best way for her to do that is to find him and carry out an elaborate scheme whereby she can convince him to make good on his word of marriage without her honor being affected in any way. This involves incorporating her friends and relatives (such as Fernando and the two ladies who were nearly abducted in the beginning of the play) into a plan that requires different people to play different roles at different times. She's the one who's calling the shots, moving the others around like pieces on a chess board (or like actors on a stage). There are, of course, side romances between the other characters: Don Juan has fallen for Estela, for instance, but Estela has her heart set on this dashing newcomer named Leonardo...It's pretty complicated, and the outcome remains entirely uncertain right up until the very end (which is pretty much how all comedias go, in my experience).

It was a fun play. One thing I found especially notable was the large number of intertextual and meta-theatrical references. Not only is the play built around a character from another play (Don Juan), but everyone is playing roles in Leonor's play, and she herself has put on a costume that alters her person in a fundamental way. The difference between person and character is mentioned by her and also by Ribete, who wonders whether he'll be constrained by the typical servant archetype: can he be other than cowardly and the butt of all jokes? Ribete is also interesting because he is aware of the form the characters are speaking in: at one point he commends another character on a particularly difficult assonant rhyme achieved in a long romance, and he also mentions other rhetorical devices such as hyperbole and prosopopeia. I really get a kick out of these kinds of things, and the theater-within-theater aspects of this play were very satisfying. On that note, I'm going to move on to Calderón de la Barca's La vida es sueño and El gran teatro del mundo, two other plays that investigate the differences between the world and the stage (as well as those between life and dream, or fiction and reality). I also recall that La vida es sueño begins with Rosaura appearing on a Hippogriff (it's really just a horse), dressed as a man and out to avenge her own grievance. I don't think it's possible to know which came first, Ana Caro's play or Calderón's, but I will enjoy looking for similarities between the two women seeking to restore their honor. ( )