La discreta enamorada / The Cleverest Girl in Madrid by Lope de Vega (review)

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• La discreta enamorada / The Cleverest Girl in Madrid by Lope de Vega
• Robin Alfriend Kello

Lope de Vega. La discreta enamorada / The Cleverest Girl in Madrid. Translated by Donald R. Larson. Edition, Notes, and Introduction by Donald R. Larson and Susan Paun de García. LIVERPOOL UP, 2022. 328 PP.

THE FELICITOUS CHOICES on offer in La discreta enamorada / The Cleverest Girl in Madrid begin with the title. An urban comedia composed circa 1606 and set in the bustling city of Madrid, Lope's play explores the tension between forces of desire and obligation in romantic entanglements. While the present connotations of discretion in English might suggest an excess of prudence or a quiet assent to a pact of secrecy, the discreción that distinguishes Lope's Fenisa is the plot-fueling intelligence that allows her to navigate a dizzying palimpsest of love triangles through fortune and stratagem and come out on the other side with Lucindo, her galán of choice. Rather than solely a quality of her character, Fenisa's ingenuity as an architect of enredo becomes a contagion that suffuses the entire plot, dramatizing that only sharpness of mind can match the passions of the heart and articulating that drama itself is born at the intersection of cleverness and desire.

About those love triangles: Lope sets two households in play—one that holds a mother and daughter and another, a father and son. Belisa, Fenisa's mother, wishes to marry Captain Bernardo, who is after Fenisa. She, however, has her eye set on Bernardo's son, Lucindo, himself entangled in a tumultuous game of celos with the courtesan Gerarda, who has captured the attention of Doristeo. To provoke jealousy in Gerarda, Lucindo offers words of love to the gracioso, Hernando, cross-dressed in the role of Estefanía. As Lucindo's fictional lady happens to share a name with Doristeo's sister, a perceived threat to male honor compounds substantial difficulties of courtship already present. If that series of fortuitous complications designed to delight the audience sounds like a familiar Lopean chain reaction of plot device, La discreta enamorada differs from many [End Page 475] comedias by making the parents not only the classic blocking figures they so often are but also rivals to the young lovers.

Donald R. Larson's translation excels by rendering the pleasures of such cleverness in a modern English idiom, allowing audiences to orient themselves within the mounting confusion of the plot and share in the joy of its unexpected twists and the emotional intensity of its characters. As Larson writes in the translator's note, this edition began in a workshop with David Johnston at the 2015 Association for Hispanic Classical Theater (AHCT) conference. Following Johnston's theory of translation as a conversation not merely between two languages, but also between two distinct times and places, Larson aims to follow the spirit of the original work rather than reproduce it with strict fidelity (79–80). Foregoing rhyme while retaining the line breaks of verse and often an elevated register, the translation offers both the taste of a classic and the spice of the present moment. Free from the intimidation of antiquated language or contorted grammar to mirror the conventions of Spanish, Larson centers the mad rush of the plot and pleasure of Fenisa's elaborate ruses. As she says in an aside that casts light on her intentions and abilities: "Oh, my Lucindo / If you can't follow this little scheme I've hatched / You're neither clever nor a son of Madrid; / But if you do understand, and come looking, / Born in Madrid you were, and blessed / with sharp wits!" (707–10). Fenisa's designs test Lucindo's capacity to grasp her cleverness while also ensuring that, if he follows, they will end up together. Readers of this translation might find themselves not only cheering her on but also celebrating the Madrileño resourcefulness she hopes to find in Lucindo.

As a critical bilingual edition with an expansive introduction and copious notes, this volume is ideal for scholars and students of comedia and would serve as a fine entry point for newcomers to that theatrical tradition. Larson and...