| Antonio Mira De Amescua |
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| 1578 births | |
| mira de amescua | |
| 1636 deaths | |
| spanish dramatists and playwrights | |
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He is said, but doubtfully, to have been the illegitimate son of one Juana Perez; he took orders, obtained a canonry at Guadix, and settled at Madrid early in the 17th century. He is mentioned as a prominent dramatist in ''Rojas Villandrandos Loa'' (1603), which was written several years before it was published. In 1610 , being then arch-dean of Guadix, he accompanied the count de Lemos to Naples , and on his return to Spain was appointed (1619) chaplain to the cardinal Infante Ferdinand of Austria; he is referred to as still alive in Montalbán 's ''Para todos'' (1632), and he collaborated with Montalbán and Calderón in ''Polifemo y Circe'', printed in 1634. The date of his death is not known. Mira de Amescua's plays are dispersed in various printed collections, and the absence of a satisfactory edition has prevented, his due recognition. He has an evenness of execution which indicates an artistic conscience uncommon in Spanish playwrights; he resisted the temptation to write too much, and he unites a virile dignity of expression to impressive conception of character. Two of his plays--''La adversa fortuna de Don Bernardo de Cabrera'' and ''El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha''--are respectively the sources of Rotrou 's ''Don Bernardo de la Cabrère'' and ''Belisaire''; Moreto 's ''Caer para levantar'' is simply a recast of Mira's ''El Esclavo del demonio'', a celebrated drama which clearly influenced Calderón when composing ''La Devoción de la cruz''; and there is manifestly a close relation between Mira's ''La Rueda de la fortuna'' on the one hand and Corneille 's ''Héraclius'' and Calderón's ''En esta vida todo es verdad y todo es mentira''. A few of Mira de Amescua's plays are reprinted in the ''Biblioteca de autores españoles'', vol. xlv. |
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