Some Authoring and Editing Problems in the Theater of the First Renaissance

Abstract

In general, we know little about the biographies of the authors of our first theater. Of most of the dozens of authors of ‘autos’, farces and comedies of the time, we hardly have a name stripped of all news. We propose here some models to investigate these gaps and try to reconstruct the biographical data that contribute to better explain those works. As for the problems of editing, the two main procedures of transmission of the dramatic text are analyzed, that of the compilation in book of complete works (Cancionero by Encina, Propalladia by Naharro) or the most frequent one of printing in ‘pliego suelto’, favored by the brevity and provisional nature of the plays.

Keywords

• renaissance theater
• biography
• textual criticism
• printing
• ‘pliegos sueltos’