This critical edition of a lesser-known play by Tirso de Molina (Fray Gabriel Téllez) is a welcome addition to the scholarly work on the production of one of early modern Spain’s most important playwrights. It contains a highly readable introduction comprised of a section that explores the sociopolitical context of the play as well as a detailed summary of the three acts, further subdivided into scene summaries. Enrique García Santo-Tomás also offers a well-wrought and intriguing study of the work. This accompanies the other expected information in a critical edition, including the summary of the different editions of the play as well as a useful bibliography of the critical work published on this play over the centuries. The study is engaging and detailed, yet it is also succinct. Some critical introductions wend their way through many digressions, but it is clear that García Santo-Tomás has consciously avoided this model. At the same time, he demonstrates a broad understanding of — and a depth of engagement with — both this play and its place in Tirso’s oeuvre.

As García Santo-Tomás and others rightly point out, Amar por arte mayor, published in 1636 in the Quinta parte de las comedias, is a palatine play, with the majority of the action taking place among the nobles in the political and amorous intrigue-laden context of the palace. Both medieval and early modern Spanish scholars may find the historical context of the play interesting: tenth-century, Muslim-occupied Iberia. However, references to this milieu are relegated to secondary status in order to focus on the rivalries between characters. Some major themes represented in the work are common to comedias in general, including jealousy, memory, honor, love, and the abuse of power (21).

Perhaps the most complex part of the play deals with the exchange of messages among various characters that contain double, triple, or hidden meanings. These letters and dialogue allow for considerable dramatic tension on the one hand, and, on the other, they offer Tirso an opportunity to display his talents as a master of wordplay. The rivalry between and among both female and male characters is the motor for the play, and Tirso plays this out and complicates the plot via the representation of writing in relation to love, diplomacy, and masculinity. There are many instances of ambiguous communication, and as García Santo-Tomás notes, all of the characters deceive and are deceived throughout the play, with each one using any reasonable strategy to accomplish his or her goals (30). All of these aspects add to the complexity of the play, yet Tirso’s linguistic manipulation and his poetic virtuosity in this supremely Baroque play are likely to be among the details of most interest to readers.

The text of the comedia itself is free of typographical errors and the use of explicatory footnotes is appropriate and quite helpful in following some of the more obscure allusions and double entendres that the play contains. García Santo-Tomás strikes just the right balance by not distracting the reader with too many notes, nor does a scarcity of them leave the reader grasping for necessary information to decipher a particularly difficult reference. He also provides examples of the usage of many words or phrases found in Tirso’s other works to better understand their contextual significance. This edition of Amar por arte mayor brings an understudied yet linguistically rich and complex play to the foreground.

Enrique García Santo-Tomás’s study highlights promising avenues for further analysis, including Tirso’s brilliant wordplay as well as the play’s critique of poorly exercised power. It will be of interest to specialists of early modern Spanish theater in general, and scholars of Tirso de Molina in particular. However, anyone who values the power and beauty of the written word will appreciate this play as well as the work García Santo-Tomás has done both to present and to analyze it.