Sobre un tópico equivocado (las representaciones de las comedias de Plauto y Terencio en España a finales del siglo XV) y Celestina

Abstract

Before including Celestina in the dramatic genre or accepting the roman comedy as one of its models, we need to find a satisfactory answer to a major problem: the total absence, in Castile, of documentation relating to any performance of Plautus and Terence's comedies at the end of the 15th century. Although some scholars have affirmed that in the Spain of the time the works of both Latin playwrights were performed, they have not offered a single documentary evidence that could prove it. This unfounded belief was probably due to the uncritical attempt of establishing a facile homology between the dramatic tradition of the Italian peninsula, where such representations were common, with the Spanish situation, where they appear to be lacking. Nevertheless, such an obvious incongruity continues to be repeated and it does not help to explain the genesis of Celestina.