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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Interesting light is thrown on the apprenticeship of William Wycherley as a dramatist by examination of his earliest play, Love in a Wood, against its Spanish source. For the intrigue involving Ranger, Lydia, Christina, and Vincent, Wycherley used Calderon's Mañanas de abril y mayo. The Spanish play runs as follows:
Returning to Madrid from refuge after killing a rival for the affections of Ana, Juan hides at the house of his friend Pedro, a near neighbor of Ana. Pedro tells Juan of how Ana has grieved in solitude during his absence. But Juan is not sure she had not favored his rival—indeed, it is to make certain of her attitude that he has risked the law and the slain man's relatives in returning.
1 The source for the Ranger-Valentine plot has not been indicated hitherto. Montague Summers conjectures a Spanish source, remarking, “Very similar situations and characters [to those of Love in a Wood] frequently occur in the comedias of Calderon, Lope de Vega, Ruiz de Alarcón, Moreto, and the other Spanish dramatists”—Complete Works of Wycherley (London, 1924), i, 67. Summers mentions Calderón's El escondido y la tapada as being similar in some ways to Love in a Wood, but he says further of the latter play (p. 30), “… I do not think I have as yet read the exact original, which, no doubt, exists among the thirty thousand plays computed to have been produced between 1590, when Lope de Vega began his career at Madrid, and 1681, when Calderon died there.” Dizionario Letterario Bompiani (Milan, 1946) speaks in even more general terms of Spanish influence (not sources), and here too Calderón is naturally mentioned as the outstanding exponent of the capa y espada school: “In Love in a Wood, come in generate nelle commedie della Restaura-zione, si nota fortissimo l'influsso delle commedie francesi (Molière) dal dialogo vivace e brillante, e di quelle spagnole (Pedro Calderon de la Barca) dagli intrecci barocchi” (i, 131).
2 This play is dated 1632. Wycherley undoubtedly used the 1664 edition, the Tercera parte of Calderón's comedies.
3 Apparently, in the original play (but not in the extant editions) Luis gave an explanation of Ana's attitude toward the slain suitor that was quite acceptable to Juan.
4 I, xviii. All references for Mañanas de abril y mayo are to the edition of J. E. Hartzenbusch (Madrid, 1925) (Biblioteca de Autores Españoles, vol. ix).
5 Act ii, Works of Wycherley, i, 96.