Entremeses de «El hidalgo» y de «El Rey de los tiburones»
Study and edition by Arianna Fiore.
Immediately after the publication of Don Quixote, the pair of knight and squire became so famous and caused so much interest that they became the protagonists of works in other literary genres, such as drama. The entremeses of El hidalgo and El Rey de los tiburones, studied and edited in this work, represent one of these incursions of the Cervantes novel into the world of the stage. Published for the first time in La Floresta de entremeses, a collection of entremeses edited in 1680, anonymous and without any indication of the date of composition and representation, they perhaps mark a new stage in the reception and recreation of Don Quixote in Spain, since they are entirely dedicated to an episode in which Don Quixote, in fact, disappears, to leave space for his squire, evoking the government of the Barataria Island.
Set probably towards the end of the 1670s or beginning of the following decade by the company of the comedy author Manuel Vallejo, perhaps on the occasion of the royal wedding between Carlos II and Marie-Louise d’Orléans, these entremeses enthrone a Sancho very different from the original, since all that remains of him are the most comical features, his instincts and his most basic and physiological needs, without psychological depth or ethical subtlety.
The critical edition of the entremés of El hidalgo takes into consideration the two existing manuscripts (ms. 16616, kept in the Biblioteca Nacional de Madrid, and ms. 61432, kept in the Biblioteca del Instituto del Teatro de Barcelona) of the first version of the text, originally written for the actor Juan Rana and subsequently adapted to the requirements of Vallejo’s company. The disagreements of these manuscripts with the princeps edition of the second version of 1680 have been indicated in a table of variants.
No autograph or manuscript of the entremés of El Rey de los tiburones has been found, therefore in this edition a comparison is proposed with the only later edition of the text, which appeared in 1733 in the third volume of the posthumous works of Don Manuel de León Marchante, a religious linked to the court of Carlos II, celebrated by Calderón as the “native salt of the Parnassus” and today a rather forgotten author, known at that time mainly for his short theatre texts.
You can consult the table of contents of the work HERE, or visit the website of the Società Editrice Fiorentina dedicated to the collection “Recreaciones quijotescas en Europa“.