Tirso de Molina

Life and career

Gabriel Téllez was born in Madrid to Andrés López and Juana Téllez, servants of the Count of Molina. As a youth, he studied at the University of Alcalá. He joined the mendicant Order of Our Lady of Mercy on 4 November 1600, by whom he was sent to the Monastery of San Antolín at Guadalajara to begin his period of novitiate on 21 January 1601. He had been ordained as a priest by 1610.

Téllez had been writing plays for ten years when he was sent by his superiors on a mission to the West Indies in 1615; as a result, he resided in the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo from 1616 to 1618. After returning to Europe, he resided at the Mercedarian monastery in Madrid, where he took part in the proceedings of the Medrano Academy, competed in the literary tournaments, and wrote for the stage.

Tellez' first publication, the incomplete Cigarrales de Toledo (a work licensed in 1621, but not published until 1624), is a miscellany of short tales, novellas, verses, and three plays. One of the novellas, Los tres maridos burlados, which may have been derived from Francesco Cieco da Ferrara's Mambriano, and the play entitled El vergonzoso en palacio are considered to demonstrate wit and ingenuity. The preface to Cigarrales de Toledo states that Tirso de Molina had already written three hundred plays.

Téllez opposed culteranismo in the Cigarrales de Toledo, and made enemies through his attacks on it in pieces such as Amar por arte mayor and La celosa de si misma. The tone of some of his productions caused his rivals to denounce him as a corrupter of public morals to the Council of Castile in 1625, and, though no legal action was taken against him, he may have been reprimanded privately. In 1626, it was thought to be advisable to transfer him to Salamanca, thus Téllez left Madrid, determined not to write anything more for the stage. Although one of his plays, La huerta de San Juan, is dated as being written in 1626, there is no proof that he started writing it after his departure from Madrid, and it is suspected that he did not write anything for eight years.

Téllez, however, had not lost his interest in theatre, having published twelve representative pieces as the first part of his dramatic works (1626). At the same time, he continued to serve his Order, being named the prior of the monastery at Trujillo in 1626; he was elected later to the posts of reader in theology and Definitor General, and, in May 1632, he was appointed the official archivist of the Order.

His Deleitar aprovechando, which was published in 1635, is a counterpart of the Cigarrales de Toledo. A sequel was promised to this collection of tales, lyrics, and autos, but, as in the case of the Cigarrales de Toledo, the continuation never appeared.

Twelve plays constitute the third part of his dramatic works published in 1634; the plays were supposedly edited by the writer's nephew, Francisco Lucas de Ávila; however, Ávila may have been a cover identity for himself. The second section of the plays (1635), the printing of which was paid for by the Confraternity of St. Jerome, contains four plays by Téllez, and eight written by him in collaboration with other dramatists, including Juan Ruiz de Alarcón; however, Tirso de Molina still did the majority of the writing. The fourth and fifth compilations of his dramatic works (1635 and 1636) each contain twelve plays; the haste with which these five volumes were issued may indicate the author's desire to save some part of his work from destruction, and the appearance of his nephew's name on the titlepages of the last four volumes may indicate his desire to avoid conflict with the authorities. A sixth volume of dramatic pieces, consisting of comedies, was announced; however, the project was abandoned.

Dramatic composition may have still been a part of Tirso's leisure as he grew older, as indicated by how the fragmentary autograph copy of Las quinas de Portugal is dated 8 March 1638, despite the fact that his active career as a dramatist ended two years earlier. He was absorbed by other duties. As official archivist of his order, he compiled the elaborate Historia de la Merced (his religious order), which occupied him until 24 December 1639, and which was not published until 1973. As a tribute to the Count de Sastago, who had accepted the dedication of the fourth part of the plays, and who may have helped to defray the publishing expenses, Tirso de Molina is said to have compiled the Genealogía de la casa de Sastago (1640), but the ascription of this genealogical work is disputed.

On 29 September 1645, Tirso de Molina was appointed as the prior of the monastery at Soria, where he died.