Out of the Wings

El viejo celoso (1610-1615), Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Titles

English title: The Jealous Old Man
Date written: sometime between 1610 and 1615
First publication date: 1615
Keywords: morality > honour, identity > sexuality, family > marriage, love > lust, love > desire
Genre and type: entremés

Pitch

Reminiscent of Chaucer’s ‘The Miller’s Tale’, this playful romp also has a more serious side. It reflects Cervantes’ interest in obsessive-compulsive psychological states that border on madness – most famously represented in Don Quixote. Here a paranoid old man marries a much younger woman, only to be cuckolded by her in his own home.

Synopsis

The play opens with the lady of the house, Lorenza, complaining to her niece Cristina and an old bawd, Ortigosa, that she has been locked up and patrolled by her jealous old ‘gaoler’, her husband. Ortigosa offers to sneak a young man into the house for Lorenza to enjoy. Cristina also wants a man for herself, and Ortigosa leaves, promising to bring them both. Meanwhile Cañizares, the Jealous Old Man, is outside conversing with his friend,; he reveals how he is jealous even of the wind that blows on Lorenza, though she has never given him cause. Cañizares won’t even allow his friend to enter the house to say hello to Lorenza, he is so jealous of all other men. Ortigosa knocks on the door, pretending to be asking the master of the house for money to bail her son out of jail, in exchange for a large tapestry which she has brought along to sell. Pictured on the tapestry is a handsome young man in a cape; as she and Lorenza hold up the cloth to inspect it, a young man sneaks into the house behind the tapestry. Once the young man is safe in Lorenza’s chamber, Ortigosa takes her leave and Lorenza goes into her room. Cristina and Cañizares hear Lorenza ‘enjoying’ her young man from the sounds emanating from the next room. Cañizares attempts to go through the door, and Lorenza throws a bowl of water in his face, allowing the young man to escape. Lorenza yells at her husband for not trusting her and for making a fuss, and an Officer of the Law hears the shouting. He comes in to make sure all is well, accompanied by neighbours, Ortigosa and a musician. After Cañizares is reconciled to his wife and Ortigosa, the musician calls for a song, and all ends in apparent neighbourly harmony.

Sources

Smith (1996: 129) finds parallels between Cervantes’ short play and an Italian play in the style of commedia dell’arte (Il Vecchio Geloso). See also Urbina 1990. The play also closely resembles Cervantes’ exemplary novel, El celoso extremeño.

Cervantes, Miguel de. 1996. Eight Interludes, trans. and ed. Dawn L. Smith. London, Everyman
Urbina, Eduardo. 1990. ‘Hacia El viejo celoso de Cervantes’. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 38, 733-42 (in Spanish)

Critical response

Although not performed in his lifetime, the eight entremeses (one-act plays) Cervantes published have received plenty of critical attention in the 20th century. El retablo de las maravillas is probably the entremés of his most often staged, followed in popularity by La cueva de Salamanca. Most critics see Cervantes’s dramatic work as an overt attack on Lope’s popular formula, as Cervantes’s plays do not conform to the ‘norms’ of Lope’s Arte nuevo. However some critics disparage the plays, seeing their uniqueness as Cervantes’s lack of talent for writing marketable drama. Cervantes is generally thought to have been a better novelist and short story writer than playwright, although there are many critics who write favourably of his innovative dramatic craft. Cervantes is principally known as the writer of Don Quixote, a work of comedy but also of philosophy and ‘high moral purpose’, which accounts for the neglect of his comic theatre (Smith 1996: 169). Yet 20th century critics have reclaimed Cervantes’s ingenuity, especially Casalduero (1966) and Asensio (1965 and 1971). Cervantes’s plays are increasingly appreciated and have been recently staged by both the Compañía Nacional de Teatro Clásico in Madrid, and in English translation by the Royal Shakespeare Company (Pedro, the Great Pretender in 2004-05). For an overview of Cervantes’ critics from 1749 on, see Smith, 1996.

Asensio, Eugenio. 1971. Itinerario del entremés desde Lope de Rueda a Quiñones de Benavente, 2nd edn Madrid, Gredos (in Spanish)
Casalduero, Joaquín. 1966. Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes. Madrid, Gredos (in Spanish)
Cervantes, Miguel de. 1996. Eight Interludes, trans. and ed. Dawn L. Smith. London, Everyman
Smith, Dawn. 1996. ‘Cervantes and His Critics’. In Eight Interludes, trans. and ed. Dawn L. Smith, pp. 166-76. London, Everyman

Editions

Cervantes, Miguel de. 1987. Entremeses, ed. Nicholas Spadaccini. Madrid, Cátedra
Cervantes, Miguel de. 1998. Entremeses, ed. Florencio Sevilla Arroyo and Anonio Rey Hazas. Cervantes completo 17. Madrid, Alianza

Useful readings and websites

Thacker, Jonathan. 2006. ‘Sex, Treachery, and Really Big Moustaches: Cervantes’s Entremeses at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival’. Interview with Kathleen Mountjoy. Comedia Performance, 3, 1, 185-99
Asensio, Eugenio. 1971. Itinerario del entremés desde Lope de Rueda a Quiñones de Benavente, 2nd edn Madrid, Gredos (in Spanish)
Casalduero, Joaquín. 1966. Sentido y forma del teatro de Cervantes. Madrid, Gredos (in Spanish)
Cascardi, Anthony J. 2002. The Cambridge Companion to Cervantes. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
Huerta Calvo, Javier. 2001. El teatro breve en la Edad de Oro. Arcadia de las letras, 4. Madrid, Ediciones del Laberinto (in Spanish)
Reed, Cory. 1993. The Novelist as Playwright. Cervantes and the Entremés Nuevo. New York, Peter Lang
Spadaccini, Nicholas and Jenaro Talens. 1993. Through the Shattering Glass: Cervantes and the Self-Made World. Minneapolis and London, University of Minnesota Press
Urbina, Eduardo. 1990. ‘Hacia El viejo celoso de Cervantes’. Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica, 38, 733-42 (in Spanish)
cited in Smith 1996: 129
Wardropper, Bruce W. 1955. ‘Cervantes’ Theory of the Drama’, Modern Philology, 52, 4, 217-21
Wardropper, Bruce W. 1981. ‘Ambiguity in El viejo celoso’, Cervantes, 1-2, 19-27

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Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 4 October 2010.

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Out of the Wings

Out of the Wings

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El viejo celoso (1610-1615), Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

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