La acotación como texto

The comparison between Lope de Vega’s autograph stage directions and the corresponding printed versions in his Partes de comedias shows significant textual differences, which demonstrate at least two important facts: 1) the textual instability of the stage directions – copyists and compositors don’t see the stage directions as texts to be copied literally and in their integrity, and 2) the existence of a pattern of intervention by the printers, with the purpose of adapting the stage directions to the act of reading, in different and not always systematic ways. This paper tackles these issues, tries to delineate the specific problems raised by the editing of stage directions, and suggests some lines of action.