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- Juan Encina
Juan del Encina
- Personal information
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Surname: Encina
First name: Juan
Commonly known as: Juan del Encina
Other versions of the name: Enzina
Born: 12 July 1468, Salamanca, Spain
Died: 1529
- Biography
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Encina is often called the father of Spanish theatre, and is also called Spain’s first dramatist. He began, in his native Salamanca, studying law between 1488 and 1492. He was active in the church, taking minor orders and as a chorister and later choir chaplain. He worked as a page to the brother of the Duke of Alba, which presumably brought him his connections to later become the chief provider of entertainments and plays at the palace of Alba de Tormes (Zimic 1998: 96). When he became employed by the court of the Duke of Alba, he was commissioned to provide entertainments, so he wrote music and dramatic eglogas, or eclogues. Encina began his playwriting career under the patronage of the Duke of Alba in the last decade of the 15th century; his plays were mostly on religious themes, such as his early nativity eclogues. Eight of them were published in 1496 in Salamanca in his Cancionero. They were republished often and Encina was one of the first writers to oversee the printing himself.
After moving to Italy from about 1500, he worked in the papal courts of Alexander VI, Julius II and Leon X. There he became influenced by Italian drama and his plays take on more Humanist, popular themes, with the power of human love replacing divine love as his principal subject. He dedicated his work of theory, the Arte de poesía castellana, to the Catholic Monarchs (Ferdinand and Isabella), and thrived as a court poet and musician during the time of intense Spanish optimism, orthodoxy and empire. Like his early tutor, the renowned grammarian Nebrija, he divided his time between Spain and Italy. He also travelled to Jerusalem in 1519 in an act of contrition for his past sensualidad (sensuality). His last years were spent in Leon, where he was shocked by the poor quality of life suffered in the disorganised and warring areas of conflict (Zimic 1998: 97). A hugely influential writer, Encina lived throughout the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella and through the first 12 years of the reign of Charles V, a time of great change in both Spanish and Italian history as well as drama.
Espinosa Maeso, R. 1921. ‘Nuevos datos biográficos de Juan del Encina’, Boletín de la Real Academia Española, 8, 640-56 (in Spanish)
Stanislav Zimic, ‘Juan del Encina (or Enzina) (1468-1529)’. In Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, ed. Mary Parker, pp. 96-106. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press
- Further information
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Juan del Encina's name is sometimes spelled ‘Enzina’, and he was possibly known as 'Juan de Fermoselle' before he changed his name to Juan del Encina.
- Themes
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Encina’s plays were intended for performance at the court; his early plays were religious in nature and designed to be performed by actors in costume, for celebrations in the church calendar. These early nativity plays include the Egloga representada en la noche de la natividad and its companion play, the Egloga representada en la mesma noche de Navidad. There is a clear progression in the plays from religious to increasingly dramatic and secular works, from the religious to the profane, and an increasing confidence in the theatricality. After he moved to Italy in the early 1500s, Humanist influences cause Juan del Encina’s later plays to move towards championing the power of human rather than divine love.
- Style
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Since Juan del Encina wrote his plays before Aristotle’s works on dramatic precepts, the Poetics, was translated and came to Spain, he does not follow the classical ‘unities’. His Eclogues are dialogues written in verse, and they normally feature shepherds as the main characters, though these shepherds often have double roles as Biblical characters or the Gospel writers, for instance. Aristocrats, when they feature in the plays, tend to speak Castilian Spanish, but the shepherds often speak in sayagués, a mock-Salamancan dialect which was invented by playwrights and became a stage convention, rather than a ‘real’ dialect. This sayagués was often used subsequently to depict rustic characters’ speech (see Sullivan 1976 on the origin of the dialect, (43-4), and the introduction to del Río’s 2001 edition of Juan del Encina’s Teatro, xxxviii-xlii). The contrast, or duality, of high-born, noble sentiment and popular, contemporary voice is one of the most enjoyable and characteristic features of Encina’s work.
Sullivan, Henry W. 1976. Juan del Encina. Boston, Twayne
- Plays in the database
- Useful reading and websites
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Espinosa Maeso, R. 1921. ‘Nuevos datos biográficos de Juan del Encina’, Boletín de la Real Academia Española, 8, 640-56 (in Spanish)
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Stanislav Zimic, ‘Juan del Encina (or Enzina) (1468-1529)’. In Spanish Dramatists of the Golden Age: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, ed. Mary Parker, pp. 96-106. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press
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Sullivan, Henry W. 1976. Juan del Encina. Boston, Twayne
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Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 13 October 2010.
