Our colleague Víctor Roncero López, professor in Hispanic Languages and Literature at Stony Brook University, specialist in the literature of the Spanish Baroque and in the courtly politics of kings Philip III and IV, has just released a new scholarly edition of Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s play El postrer duelo de España (The Last Duel in Spain), one of the lesser studied comedias of one of the greatest European dramatists of the seventeenth century. In 2019, Roncero López also edited Calderón’s play Saber del mal y el bien, and in 2020, in colaboration with Abraham Madroñal Durán, they published a selection of Calderón’s short pieces for the celebration of the Corpus Christy.
Illustration 1: Cover page. Pedro Calderón de la Barca. El postrer duelo de España. Ed. by Victoriano Roncero López. Madrid and Frankfurt: Iberoamericana, 2023. Biblioteca Áurea Hispánica (155, 30). 226 pages.
This new scholarly and annotated edition, based on one of the manuscripts revised and corrected by Calderón himself, includes a thorough literary study of the play and its manuscripts and printed transmission.
El postrer duelo en España is based on a historical duel that took place in Valladolid (Spain) in December 1522 in the presence of the emperor Charles V, in which two gentlemen from Aragon were involved in a legal duel, the last official one in Spain. The confrontation was reported by a French witness, later translated by a Dutch Jesuit, and then included in Prudencio de Sandoval’s History of Charles V (1604-1606), which became the historical source used by Calderón to create his play.
Illustration 2: Final page of one of the manuscripts of El postrer duelo de España (BNE) with the official play approval or license.
Calderón adapted the 1522 historical event into the popular form of the comedia, which required a love story and a conflict of honor, along with a parallel lighter plot in the roles of the servants. Although duels were great entertainment on stage, they were also a serious social and legal problem in the early modern times, especially after the popularization of chivalry and aristocratic manners through printed pamphlets and theater.
Prof. Roncero López, who has extensively published on the works of Quevedo, Calderón, Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina, among other classics, regularly offers undergraduate and graduate courses and seminars on Spanish Golden Age theater in our Department (check our webpage). The plays and other texts studied in Prof. Roncero López’s courses show the way of life and thinking of seventeenth century society in Spain and frequently represent empowered women, who controlled their lives and participated in public government.