Lope de Vega
El caballero del sacramento
edited by Donald McGrady

El caballero del sacramento (The Knight of the Eucharist) is one of only forty autograph plays (from a total production of nearly 400 dramatic works existent today) preserved in their entirety. This autograph belonged to the Duke of Sessa, Lope’s employer and patron, and today is held in a private collection, but was reproduced in a microfilm available to the public. To date, El caballero del sacramento has been printed in only two editions, the first appearing in Madrid in 1621, and the second in 1898; both of these printings contain hundreds of textual changes. Furthermore, the play has been studied only twice, in a brief prologue of 1898 and in an article of 1982. Its story relates how two lovers plan to escape together and marry when she is promised in marriage to a man she has never met; however, a fire breaks out in a nearby church, and the male protagonist enters the burning building and saves the sacramental wafers; this event so moves him that he allows his beloved to be married to the man she abhors, and it is only after numerous adventures that the sweethearts are reunited. This play exalting the Eucharist was written by Lope at a time (1610) when he was undergoing a deep religious crisis; its action seems to be of his invention. To make the text entirely accessible to the reader of the twenty-first century, McGrady annotates hundreds of historical, geographical, lexical and literary allusions.

Ediciones críticas #39
isbn: 978-1-58871-120-5 (PB)