Current State of the Question: Limitations of the Present Article

Tracing the “state of the question” of any field (especially in the humanities) implies, first of all, two principal limitations: on the one hand, the inevitable catalogue; and, on the other, the impossibility of mentioning all valuable contributions. For both limitations, I apologize in advance as my purpose is to outline a partial (but, I hope, not arbitrary) panorama of criticism related to Tirso de Molina over the past decade. To those interested in earlier efforts, I recommend the bibliographies of Everett Hesse (in the journal Estudios, covering 1949 to 1975), and David H. Darst (in the same journal, covering 1975 to 1989, as well as his ‘Bibliografía general de Tirso de Molina 1999 a 2002’ [2003: 5–24]), continued by Jane W. Albrecht for 2003 to 2016 (2008: 69–88; 2011: 109–120; 2015: 155–167; 2016: 277–288), in addition to other sources like Blanca Oteiza’s “Tirso en el siglo XXI. Estado actual de los estudios tirsianos” (2003: 3–5) or the Tirso de Molina portal in the Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes. Although activity around Tirso has not increased markedly, many more works have been published in this time frame than possibly can be cited here. Therefore, rather than creating an exhaustive inventory, I will limit myself to commenting on a selection of entries that will highlight certain trends that I consider particularly revelatory.

Some Indicators Related to Research on Tirso: Projects, Conferences, and Doctoral Dissertations

As I have mentioned, the critical panorama of Tirso studies has not experienced a growth in proportion to what, in my view, would be warranted by the relevance of his work. The Instituto de Estudios Tirsianos (IET) of the Universidad de Navarra and the Mercedarian Order continue working on the edition of his plays, but at an irregular pace. Oteiza has directed two projects of critical editions under the auspices of Spain’s Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (2011–2013) and the Ministerio de Economía y Competividad (2014), which have resulted in a series of publications that I will discuss later.