Published by Primary Source Microfilm

Drama of the "Siglo de Oro" or Golden Age is Spain's most impressive literary achievement, paralleling and rivaling the dramatic literary activity begun by Shakespeare in England. This collection traces the development of this Spanish literary flowering from its beginnings with Lope de Vega in the last years of the 16th century to its end in the 17th century with Calderon de la Barca.

The experiments of the early 16th-century dramatists were largely unsuccessful, but they prepared the way for the comedia nueva, a synthesis of previously existing literary elements: epic poems, liturgical pageants and minstrel ballads. The primary synthesizer of these elements, and therefore a pre-eminent figure in the Golden Age, was Lope Felix de Vega Carpio (1562-1635). Lope de Vega established the comedia as the national drama and became undisputed master of the form. The rules he established for the writing of drama continued to dominate long after his death.

As the early motivating force behind Spanish drama, Lope de Vega is naturally well represented in and central to this collection. However, many of his successors, including Tirso de Molina, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon y Mendoza and other, lesser dramatists are included. Thus scholars can compare stylistic differences and similarities, and may trace the transition of the drama from Lope de Vega to Pedro Calderon de la Barca and the end of the Golden Age.

Spanish Drama of the Golden Age includes over 3,200 individual plays in editions (anthologies or compilations) from the 17th through the mid-19th centuries. Based on the Comedia Collection of the University of Pennsylvania Library, this major collection is composed of several smaller collections:

• The Hugo Albert Rennert Collection, focusing on Lope de Vega and including classical non-dramatic works by and about de Vega, which add to an understanding of the nature and scope of his dramatic output
• J.P. Wickersham Crawford Collection, which is particularly strong in the field of Golden Age Spanish poetry
• Joseph E. Gillet Collection, which contains a substantial number of comedias sueltas
• The University of Pennsylvania Library's 17th-century collections; the Comedias Nuevas Escogidas published between 1652 and 1704, and additional Comedias Sueltas. Volumes of plays by Calderon, Tirso de Molina, Agustin Moreto y Cabana, Perez de Montalvan and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra were also taken from this collection. The University's collection also includes the Comedias Varias, binders' volumes of loose plays.

A guide, Spanish Drama of the Golden Age: A Catalogue of the Comedia Collection in the University of Pennsylvania Libraries, is provided with each order for the complete collection. The guide includes a bibliography, index of titles and index of authors.

86 reels

Machine-Readable Cataloging: OCLC WorldCat; 410 titles