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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Alonso Gerónimo de Salas Barbadillo, keen wit and talented writer, began his literary career in the early years of the seventeenth century and pursued it until his death in 1635. Personal friend of Cervantes and Lope de Vega, he was an esteemed associate of the many writers residing in Madrid. Staunchly individualistic, he was at the same time very much a part of his social and literary milieu. Posterity relegates him to the lesser ranks of those who wrought creatively in the seventeenth century; nevertheless, he has been receiving his due increasingly in the last half-century in studies and editions.
1 For a complete account of his life and works, see Edwin B. Place, La Casa del Placer Honeslo de Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo, Together with an Introduction in which his Life and Works are studied, Univ. of Colorado Studies, Vol. xv, No. 4 (Boulder, 1927).
2 Cf. F. R. de Uhagón, Dos Novelas de D. Alonso Jerônimo de Salas Barbadillo: El Cortesano descorlés and El Necio bien afortunado, Reimpresas por La Sociedad de Bibliófilos Espanoles (Madrid, 1894), and Laescuela de Celeslina (Madrid, 1902); E. Cotarelo y Mori, Obras de Salas Barbadillo, 2 v. (Madrid, 1907, 1909); Fritz Holle, La hija de Celeslina, la ingeniosa Elena, Novelas de A. J. de Salas Barbadillo, Biblioteca Románica (Strasbourg, [1912]); Francisco A. de Icaza, La perigrinación sabia y El sagaz Eustacio, marido examinado, Cläsicos Castellanos (Madrid, 1924); Edwin B. Place, op. cit., and “Salas Barbadillo, Satirist”, Remanie Review, XVII (1926), 230–242; Gregory G. La Grone, “Salas Barbadillo and the Celeslina” Hispanic Review, ix, 440–458, “Quevedo and Salas Barbadillo”, Hispanic Review, x, 223–243, and “Some Poetic Favorites of Salas Barbadillo”, Hispanic Review, xiii, 24–44; Myron A. Peyton, “Don Diego de Noche de Alonso Gerónimo de Salas Barbadillo. A Critical Edition with Introduction and Notes”, Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations, Northwestern University (June-August, 1942, Chicago and Evanston, Ill., 1943), x, 42–47; Pauline M. Marshall, “An Edition of Alonso de Salas Barbadillo's El caballero perfecto (1620) together with a Study of Previous Spanish Literary Portrayals of the Ideal Gentleman”, Summaries of Doctoral Dissertations, Northwestern University (June-August, 1943, Chicago and Evanston, Ill., 1944), xi, 19–23.
3 Cf. Place, La Casa del Placer Honesto, pp. 279–295.
4 Some titles from this collection give an idea of their kind: “Dase el pésame a un amigo de que trujo a su casa a su suegra”; “Avisos a un amigo que viene desde Castilla la Vieja a la Corte del estilo con que se ha de portar en ella”; “Reprehende a una lavandera porque se casó con un lacayo borracho”; “A un sastre remendón que pedía en la sala del crimen la virginidad de su hija.” The cleverest of the lot is addressed “A un corchete que sacó una mujer píblica del pecado para casarse con ella.”
5 Historia de la literatura national española en la Edad de Oro, Traduction del alemán por el Dr. Jorge Rubió Balaguer (Barcelona, 1933), p. 396.
6 Guevara. El Villano del Danubio y Olros Fragmentes, Princeton Texts in Literature and the History of Thought (Princeton, N. J., 1945), p. ix.
7 “A los pocos y poco lectores desta edad.” Folio references are to the first edition (Madrid, 1623).
8 See iii: Summary of Contents.
9 Cf. “Salas Barbadillo, Satirist”, pp. 235–238; and La Casa del Placer Honesto, pp. 293–294, wherein also is given a complete list of the French and English translations.
10 The foregoing exposition is greatly indebted not only to Professor Place's published studies of Salas, but also to his singular kindness in examining, as a personal favor to the present writer, the translations Paris, Alazert, 1636 and Rouen, Besongne, 1655, in Paris in the summer of 1939.
11 The Madrid edition (1623) shows 621, which the Barcelona edition (1624) emends to 1621.
12 “A los pocos y poco lectores desta edad.”
13 Ibid.
14 “Aventura primera”, fol. 6v.
15 “Refiérense patria, nacimiento, padres, y costumbres de Don Diego de Noche”, fol. 4v.
16 “Refiérense patria, nacimiento, padres, y costumbres de Don Diego de Noche”, fol. 1r.
17 “A los pocos y poco lectores desta edad.”
18 “Refiérense patria, nacimiento, padres, y costumbres de Don Diego de Noche”, fol. 1r.
19 The analysis is Pfandl's, op. cil., p. 274.
20 Besides those illustrated here, others may be found as follows: 4Sr, 68r, 166v, 169v, 182r, 198r.
21 Cf. Sebastián Covarrubias y Horozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana (Madrid, 1611): “Caer de su burra, desengañarse de su opinión errónea, con el mal suceso.”
22 Further references: 22v, 30v, 34r, 36v, 37r, 37v, 39v, 40v, 53v, 56v, 57r, 57v, 144r, 155r, 176r, 179r, 181r, 183r, 183v, 191v, 193v, 194v, 200v.
23 Introduction a la literalura espanola del Sigh de Oro (Madrid, 1934), pp. 37–39.
24 Other examples are found in fol. 27r, in the line beginning “Cuando llegaron al fin de su Jornada … ”; in fol. 15v, beginning “Así el aplauso comün … ”; in fol. 35v, “Mencia, si tu marido supiera … ”; in 97v, “Oyó Séneca …”, in the clause beginning “y que para no parecerlo … ”; and in 192v, “O sol, tú que de Dafnes fuiste amante …”, in the clause “la de amor tengo.”
25 For a sample of this see the long sentence beginning “Otro competidor suyo …” in fol. 133v and continuing through most of 134r.
26 Spanish Baroque Art (Cambridge, 1941), p. 55. Weisbach cites Ribera's “Drunken Silenus” and Velazquez's “Los Borrachos” and the portrait of Mars, among other examples. He also draws attention (p. 58) to “a specifically Spanish development of por-traiture [in Velazquez]—imaginary portraits of a grotesque and comic character with arbitrary titles, and realistic portrayals of abnormal and ridiculous human beings.” Don Diego de Noche is clearly a literary parallel to this.
The use of Italian for comic effect springs from a similar intention. In “Epistola un-décima” (Primera parte), directed “A un corredor de mohatras, habiéndosele anegado un hermano en la mar”, the unfortunate brother is depreciatingly referred to as “el caro fra-telo” (fol. 39v). A better example is found in “Aventura nona” on the occasion of the malicious purging of the Neapolitan gentleman (210r). After having taken the poisonous concoction, and feeling the violent purgative taking its effect, the poor fellow shouts in his native tongue, “Questo cane traditore me ha morto!”
27 “A los pocos y poco Iectores desta edad.”
28 “Refiérense patria, nacirniento, padres, y costumbres de Don Diego de Noche”, fol. 2r.
29 Fol. 164v.
30 “Aventura primera”, fol. 13r.
31 “A los pocos y poco lectores desla edad.”
32 But the author's style remains aristocratic in its rhetorically witty exclusiveness. It is the reverse of Quevedo in this sense: Quevedo did not resolve the Baroque tension but managed to dispatch it with the weapon of his style. Salas' style, on the other hand, is not destructive but vivifying, being the only true life found in his work.
33 Cf. Place's comprehensive study, “Salas Barbadillo, Satirist”, pp. 230–242.
34 See the “Introduction” to Place's edition of La Casa del Placer Honeslo, p. 265.
35 Aarne, Types of the folk-tale: a classification and bibliography. Translated and enlarged by Stith Thompson, FF communications, No. 74 (Helsinki, 1928). Thompson, Motif-index of folklore literature (Bloomington, Ind., 1931–). Boggs, Index of Spanish folktales, FF communications, No. 90 (Helsinki, 1930).
36 Maestro Gonzalo Correas, Vocabulario de refranes y frases proverbiales y otras formulas comunes de la lengua castellana en que van todos los impresos antes y otra gran copia. Though not published until 1906 (by the Spanish Academy; 2nd ed. 1924), this work dates from the first third of the 17th century. Correas died in 1631.
37 Cf. notes by Cejador y Frauca in the Clásicos Castellanos edition of the Suenos (Madrid, 1916), pp. 269–270 and 273. He states that the name later became synonymous with prowler-by-night and would-be seducer of married women.
38 From Obras de Lope de Vega, publicadas por la Real Academia Española (Nueva Editión), Obras Dramdticas, Tomo XIII (Madrid, 1930), p. 649. Morley and Bruerton estimate that the original was written before 1618 and partly revised in 1625, and that the play probably appeared before November, 1627. See S. Griswold Morley and Courtney Bruerton, The Chronology of Lope de Vega's Comedias (New York, 1940), p. 222.
39 Luis Montoto y Rautenstrauch (Sevilla, 1911). The many “Diego” and “Don Diego” appellations are listed and identified in Tomo I. The author says of his collection: “Mi labor no fué otra que colegir de la tradición oral y de las obras de nuestros clásicos, modos cas-tellanos de decir, en que entra como componente, o materia prima, un personaje que si no tuvo existencia real, vivió en la fantasia del pueblo español” (“Por vía de prólogo”, p. vii).
40 Fernández-Guerra edited Quevedo for the BAE, vols. 23 and 48.
41 That the connotations of the name were largely lost on the foreign translators and their public seems indicated by the titles of the translations. Rarely is “Don Diego de Noche” used, the French title usually being “Le Coureur de Nuit ou l'aventurier nocturne” and the English “The Night Adventurer.”