page_title: Juan Ruiz de Alarcón
section_title: Literary career and importance
hierarchical_section_title: Juan Ruiz de Alarcón / Literary career and importance
caption_attribution_description: Español: Parte primera de las comedias de don Juan Ruiz de Alarcón. Madrid: Juan González, 1628.
context_page_description: Juan Ruiz de Alarcón was a New Spain-born Spanish writer of the Golden Age who cultivated different variants of dramaturgy. His works include the comedy La verdad sospechosa, which is considered a masterpiece of Latin American Baroque theater.
context_section_description: Alarcón was the least prolific of all the great dramatists of Spain and is one of the very few Spanish-Americans among the great dramatists of the Siglo de Oro. He wrote less than did others, and many of his works circulated under their names. He took pains to mull over his plays and polish both their versification and their general composition. Fitzmaurice-Kelly said of Alarcón: "There are Spanish dramatists greater than Ruiz de Alarcón: there is none whose work is of such even excellence"
  He is the author of approximately twenty-five plays. Twenty of them were published by the playwright in two volumes. The first, from 1628, contains eight plays (Los favores del mundo, La industria y la suerte, Las paredes oyen, El semejante a sí mismo, La cueva de Salamanca, Mudarse por mejorarse, Todo es ventura and El desdichado en fingir); and the second volume from 1634 consists of twelve plays (Los empeños de un engaño, El dueño de las estrellas, La amistad castigada, La manganilla de Melilla, Ganar amigos, La verdad sospechosa, El anticristo, El tejedor de Segovia, La prueba de las promesas, Los pechos privilegiados, La crueldad por el honor and El examen de maridos). Other plays were published in collections. These include: Quien mal anda mal acaba, No hay mal que por bien no venga and La culpa busca la pena, y el agravio la venganza. He is also the author of Siempre ayuda la verdad, as well as a play written in collaboration, Algunas hazañas de las muchas de don García Hurtado de Mendoza (1622).
  The most famous of his plays is La verdad sospechosa, (published in 1634). The first great French comedy in modern French literature, Corneille's Le menteur (The Liar), was confessedly modeled after it. Las paredes oyen (Walls have Ears) is often seen as a companion-piece since both plays deal with mendacity. His plays can be divided into at least three distinct categories: social comedies, political dramas and plays that dramatize astrology, magic and other occult practices. Among the political plays, El dueño de las estrellas stands out as a stunning tragedy, dealing with Lycurgus, the Spartan lawgiver. Although the oracle had predicted that he would either kill a king or be killed by one, when faced with the dilemma he commits suicide thus overcoming the power of the stars. A second political play, La amistad castigada, is unusual because the king is deposed at the end. The magic plays include astonishing instances of the occult at a time when such practices were frowned upon. See, for example, La cueva de Salamanca and La prueba de las promesas. Quien mal anda, mal acaba may be the first Spanish play that dramatizes a pact with the devil. Indeed, even in social comedies such as Las paredes oyen we can encounter extensive astrological allusions.
  Embittered by his deformity, Alarcón was constantly engaged in personal quarrels with his rivals; but his attitude in these polemics is always dignified, and his crushing retort to Lope de Vega in Los pechos privilegiados is an unsurpassed example of cold, scornful invective.
  More than any other Spanish dramatist, Alarcón was preoccupied with ethical aims, and his gift of dramatic presentation is as brilliant as his dialogue is natural and vivacious. It has been alleged that his non-Spanish origin is noticeable in his plays, and there is some foundation for the observation; but his workmanship is exceptionally conscientious, and in El Tejedor de Segovia he produced a masterpiece of national art, national sentiment and national expression.
caption: First Part of the Comedies of Don Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, 1628
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "150", "Image YResolution": "150", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop 7.0", "Image DateTime": "2009:05:12 12:12:28", "Image ExifOffset": "156", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "294", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4840", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "872"}