Comedias: El remedio en la desdicha El mejor alcalde, el rey

Vega, Lope de, 1562-1635Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.3

Word count: 296K words
Chapters: 30

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Comedias: El remedio en la desdicha; El mejor alcalde, el rey by Lope de VegaAuthor: Vega, Lope de, 1562-1635,Language: Spanish, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Mar 25, 2009

Editor's review

This Project Gutenberg edition collects two classic comedies by Lope de Vega, El remedio en la desdicha and El mejor alcalde, el rey. As representative works of Spanish Golden Age drama, these two plays concentrate Vega's skilled handling of themes of honor, justice, and love, with ingenious plot turns and dialogue rich in rhythm. The electronic edition preserves the original Spanish and is well suited to experiencing the linguistic character and stage tension of Baroque drama. It can serve as supplementary material for Spanish literature courses and also for theater enthusiasts studying the structural features of Golden Age comedy. As a public-domain e-book, the layout is primarily text without modern annotations, so readers need some language foundation or reference works. Overall, it is a free classic reader combining literary-historical value with readability.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Spanish majors who need to read Golden Age drama in the original
Literature enthusiasts studying Lope de Vega and Baroque drama
Theater practitioners who want to understand the structure of Spanish classical comedy
Readers with Spanish basics looking for public-domain classic e-books

Not a good fit for

Ordinary readers with no Spanish who want a Chinese translation
Beginners who need detailed annotations and introductions
Casual readers who prefer the narrative pace of modern novels

Reading tips

Read El mejor alcalde, el rey first, as its plot line is clearer, then read the other play.
Prepare a Spanish dictionary or a translation for comparison so you can look up Golden Age usage immediately.
Read act by act, reviewing character relationships and the advancement of conflict after each act.
Study alongside publicly available course videos on Spanish Golden Age drama.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book in Chinese or Spanish?

The main text is the original Spanish, as a public-domain e-book without Chinese translation or annotations. It suits readers with some Spanish reading ability; beginners should use a dictionary or a bilingual translation.

Are the two plays related?

The two works are independent comedies. Both deal with themes of honor, justice, and love, but their characters and plots are not directly continuous. They can be read in any order without affecting understanding.

Does the electronic edition have annotations or an introduction?

The Project Gutenberg edition is primarily the original text and usually does not include modern scholarly annotations or an introduction. For background knowledge, consult separate research materials on Lope de Vega and Spanish Golden Age drama.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Vega, Lope de, 1562-1635 Author

Lope de Vega (1562–1635) was one of the most important playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age and a founding figure of Spanish national drama. The collection holds four of his works, including Comedias inéditas, La moza de cántaro, and Comedias: El remedio en la desdicha / El mejor alcalde, el rey, as well as The Pilgrim of Castile or, El Pelegrino in Su Patria. These works show him writing both plays and narrative prose, drawing on popular life, love entanglements, conflicts of honor, and village governance, with intricate plots, vivid language, and dialogue close to everyday speech. His plays often present social ethics and power relations in comic form and have had a lasting influence on the Spanish theatrical tradition. The collection provides no nationality or dates, and public information is limited, so his life cannot be described in detail here.