The Style with Which he Wrote

Alarcon's most famous play, La Verdad Sospechosa, The Truth Suspected, revealed that Alarcon wrote with immense precision and specificity in order to achieve exactly what he wanted to say. There were three versions of this play printed during the course of his life. The first two (1630) were relatively similar but the third (1634) once more revealed the importance that Alarcon obviously placed on arranging words carefully on the page, like artwork. I find it rather interesting that we have such knowledge of Alarcon's obsessive nature in articulating ideas and yet we have taken those perfectly placed words and attempted to translate them into other languages. Originally this text was written in verse but now that poetry has been utterly lost in translation. It just makes me wonder if in order to do this piece of literature and the playwright justice, it must be done in it's original language.

Between the two versions of, La Verdad Sospechosa, it is noted that Alarcon focusses on weeding out all the superfluous and unnecessary things, including repetition of words. I find this interesting when comparing it to the nature of English Drama, for example, where words and ideas were purposely repeated due to the nature of the performance venue and audience. Alarcon also started thinking in terms of clearly defining specific characters, therefore he cut any lines that could muddy the audiences perception of a character.

Works Cited

Review: Charlotte Stern. Hispanic Review, Vol. 61, No.2. Earle Homage Issue (Spring, 1993)pp. 288-290. Published by: University of Pennsilvania Press.

The Telling Lies of La Verdad Sospechosa. Mary Malcomlm Gaylord. MLN, Vol. 103, No. 2. Hispanic Issue (Mar., 1988)pp. 223-238. Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press.

La Verdad Sospechosa in the Editions of 1630 and 1634. Arthur L. Owen. Hispania, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Mar. 1925) pp. 85-87. Published by: American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese.

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