Ocho comedias (1615)

Abstract

Towards the end of his life, Cervantes returned nostalgically to his earlier days as a playwright, and in 1615 he published eight full-length plays that had never appeared on stage. As with most of his output, Cervantes strayed from form and convention and criticized the trendy theatre of the day that seemed to pander to the masses. This chapter explores the plays that Cervantes chose to publish in the same year as the second part of Don Quixote as a collection, and how his resistance to and departure from established norms are representative of his marginalization in the literary and theatrical world. In fact, they serve as a direct reaction to the comedia nueva.