Based on the earliest known printing of the play as it appeared in the Parte veintecinco perfeta, y verdadera, de las comedias del Fenix de España Frey Lope Felix de Vega Carpio . . . sacadas de sus verdaderos originales, no adulteradas como las que hasta aqui se han publicado (Zaragoza, 1647), in which it is attributed to Lope de Vega, the Castalia edition is the first critical edition of Los cautivos de Argel. The introduction focuses on the historical background of the morisco controversy, the long-debated question of authorship, an analysis of the structure, a detailed plot summary, and a synopsis of the versification. The heavily annotated text is complemented by a comprehensive bibliography of primary and secondary source material. The appendixes include fifty-three pages (pp. 263–315) of transcriptions of previously unpublished documents from Madrid’s Archivo Histórico Nacional pertaining to the Inquisitorial case against the Valencian morisco Abdela Alicaxet, on which part of the play’s plot is based; a reproduction of a manuscript page (folio 51r from the Inquisition files); as well as a list of textual variants (pp. 319–331) between the 1,647 princeps, another 1,647 printings of the play, and Emilio Cotarelo y Mori’s Real Academia Española edition (Nueva edition, tomo IV, 1917) which includes a prologue and scant textual notes.The most problematic topic covered in Ohanna’s edition is that of the disputed attribution to Lope de Vega, which was first noted by Cotarelo. The editor rejects Cotarelo’s well-founded doubts over Lope’s authorship which were based, in part, on the fact that much of the text is borrowed from Cervantes’s play El trato de Argel. Without providing any evidence to disprove Cotarelo’s arguments for rejecting the attribution to Lope, Ohanna concludes that Lope is indeed the author and that Los cautivos de Argel “. . . se trata de una refundición o plagio de El trato de Argel de Cervantes.” Cotarelo observes that Los cautivos de Argel is “. . . un trasunto de El trato de Argel, de Miguel de Cervantes . . .” (p. xi) and concludes that “. . . habrá que buscar nuevo autor a la comedia seria de Los cautivos de Argel” (p. xii). He proposes an intriguing possibility for authorship that our editor does not address. Throughout this edition, Ohanna draws parallels between Los cautivos de Argel and Cervantes’s El trato de Argel to show that the text is heavily borrowed from Cervantes. We therefore question why the editor does not explore the following hypothesis presented by Cotarelo: “. . . no habiendo sido nunca Lope plagiario, que sepamos, más que en este caso, ¿no podría ser la obra en cuestión del propio Cervantes y refundición de su vieja y ya olvidada del Trato de Argel, que haría para representar en ocasión tan solemne y famosa como las bodas dobles del rey Felipe III y la de su hermana Isabel Clara Eugenia?” (p. xiii).Ohanna advocates for the authorship of Lope de Vega based exclusively on a subjective comparison of linguistic, stylistic, and thematic elements that appear in other works of the playwright. However, many of the examples he gives, such as linguistic similarities in the use of certain words and references to myths and legends, are typical of the comedia and are not unique to Lope. For example, he points out that the verb “acostar,” “con la acepción de dirigir una embarcación a la costa, se emplea del mismo modo en obras de fiable autoría lopesca. . . .” (p. 38). But this was a common meaning and appears as such in the Diccionario de Autoridades. Likewise, his insistence that references in Los cautivos de Argel to allusions such as the Sword of Damocles, Neptune, Prometheus, Count Julian’s betrayal that led to the fall of Rodrigo’s Visigothic kingdom, and the medicinal properties of a unicorn’s horn are evidence of Lope’s authorship are equally unfounded, as these are common references in the literature of the era. In fact, the editor himself quotes (42: 21) Covarrubias’s entry on the contemporary beliefs about the powerful effects of a unicorn’s horn, thus reinforcing the fact that this was not unique to Lope.Ironically, the editor rejects Cotarelo’s arguments against the attribution to Lope claiming that they are subjective, yet all of Ohanna’s reasons for defending Lope as the author are based exclusively on subjective criteria. He rejects Portuondo’s conclusion, based on an objective analysis of the play’s orthoepy, that Lope did not write Los cautivos de Argel (36:16), stating that Portuondo’s study is based on a defective text. Nevertheless, the editor uses the same defective text to substantiate all of his subjective claims regarding authorship.As applied to the comedia, objective criteria, specifically an analysis of versification, orthoepy, and stylometry, are reliable indicators of authorship. Morley and Bruerton’s analysis of the versification (Cronología de las comedias de Lope de Vega, pp. 429–430, 603) led them to doubt that Los cautivos de Argel is a Lope play. Portuondo’s analysis of the orthoepy (Diez comedias atribuidas a Lope de Vega: Estudio de su autenticidad, pp. 41–71) proves that it is not by Lope. In order to refute Ohanna’s rejection of Portuondo’s study, we refer to the thirty-two manuscript copies of Lope plays discovered by Agustín de Amezúa (Una colección manuscrita y desconocida de comedias de Lope de Vega, Madrid:1945). These dated plays corroborated Morley and Bruerton’s findings and authenticated the reliability of the objective criteria they applied in their study of Lope’s corpus, in spite of having based their study on somewhat defective printed texts. We are not aware of any stylometric study of Los cautivos de Argel. Ohanna’s attribution to Lope de Vega is based exclusively on subjective criteria. Based on objective criteria, we can safely assume that Lope is not the author, and that Los cautivos de Argel is largely a recasting of Cervantes’s play by an as yet unidentified playwright.In the edition being reviewed, standard editorial practices are followed in writing out abbreviations and following modern practices for capitalization, spelling, and punctuation. Contractions, metathesis, and consonantal assimilations of verbal forms are conserved, as are the consonantal alternations corresponding to the usages of the period. Every fifth verse is numbered, and asides are enclosed by parentheses. Stage directions are in italics and their placement is corrected when necessary. Missing verses are indicated by ellipsis, and other corrections to the text are placed between square brackets or are clarified in the appendix. The present text is compared to the first modern edition of the play (Real Academia Española, 1917) and changes to that text made by Cotarelo are noted, along with the current editor’s evaluation of them. Located at the bottom of the page, notes do not correspond to the verse numbers but are numbered chronologically. Missing is the common practice of indenting the beginning of a new strophe. This is surprising as the editor comments on the importance of polymetry in Golden Age theatre (p. 59), and he notes changes in versification that reflect a change in the tone of the play. Indenting serves as a visual aid that helps the reader identify metrical changes.Several concerns about the textual transmission of this play should be noted. Lope de Vega (1562–1635) became involved in the publication of his Partes in order to prevent inferior works which were not his from being published under his name (see Victor Dixon, “La intervención de Lope en la publicación de sus comedias”). We do not know the provenance of the text of Los cautivos de Argel, which first appeared in the posthumous and therefore unauthorized Parte veintecinco. In the Critical Apparatus, Ohanna lists variants between the Biblioteca Nacional de España’s two states of the Zaragoza 1647 printings of Los cautivos de Argel and states that his edition is based on the princeps, but he does not explain why he is privileging one 1647 printing (which he calls “Zaragoza,” R/23482, digitized by the Biblioteca Nacional de España,) over the other (which he refers to as Zb, R/13876). It should be noted that in the 1647 edition on which the text being reviewed is based, the running header on pages 232, 236, 238, and 240 is printed as Los esclavos de Argel; on page 234, it is printed as La vitoria del Marqués de SantacurZ. “SantacurZ” is clearly a typographical error for Santa Cruz, as La nveva vitoria del Marqves de Santacrvz precedes Los cautivos de Argel in the 1647 edition. On the remaining even-numbered pages, the running header is correctly printed as Los cautivos de Argel. These noteworthy printing errors are overlooked by the editor. There is no evidence to support his claim that Los cautivos, which is listed in Lope’s Peregrino list, is an abbreviated title for Los cautivos de Argel, and that they are the same play.Some inconsistencies and flaws in the edition include misplaced notes. For example, note 103, placed at the end of verse 1097, should appear at the end of verse 1091, as it reads: “La escena completa (1065–91) es plagio de El trato de Argel.” The editor’s decision to alter defective verses or to supplement hypothetical ones for missing ones is questionable and contradicts his stated “conservative” editorial practice. He refers to the circumstances of the play’s premiere (p. 17), but there is no documentary evidence that it was performed in 1599 as part of, or subsequent to, the aforementioned double wedding celebration. Ohanna refers to Cotarelo’s edition as appearing in volume VI (“el tomo sexto,” p. 31) when, in fact, it is found in volume IV. The same points are made throughout the edition, at times with identical references.The strength of this edition undeniably lies in the thoroughly researched notes to the text that include quotes from primary and secondary source material. The copious explanatory notes clarify the meaning and the intention of the play. They run the gamut from identifying folkloric, mythological, and biblical references to the role of the Inquisition in bringing charges against both heretics and apostates, and observations on special stage effects. Ohanna’s notes resolve textual uncertainties and aid the modern reader in understanding and appreciating Los cautivos de Argel and its historical context. The editor’s thorough familiarity with the period around 1600 in which the capture of both Christians and Muslims in the Mediterranean reached its peak, and with the relationship of the moriscos to both Spain and Africa and the underlying political, social, and religious implications, shines throughout the edition.
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