Doña Clarines y Mañana de Sol

E-text prepared by Stan Goodman, Nieves Rodríguez, and the Project
Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Heath's Modern Language Series
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Edited with Introduction, Notes and Vocabulary by
S. GRISWOLD MORLEY, PH.D. Assistant Professor of Spanish, University of California
D. C. Heath & Co., Publishers Boston New York Chicago
1915
At present writing it seems to be a fact that no Spanish comedy written within the last thirty years, perhaps fifty, and making any pretense to literary worth, is available for use as a text in the United States. With the intention of filling part of the gap, as well as of introducing to students two contemporary Spanish dramatists, very well known in their own country, and very well worth while, I have selected these two short plays of the brothers Álvarez Quintero. While they are not the most important works of these authors, they are probably the best adapted to school use. The many Andalusian forms in most of the Quintero comedies debar them wholly, and in others continental plainness of speech is an obstacle. Doña Clarines and Mañana de sol are not too difficult, are written in bright and idiomatic Castilian, are entirely fit for class use, and are reprinted without the alteration or omission of a word in the original. They may well be read in the first year of a college course in Spanish, or in the second year of the high school. The editing has not been done with an eye to the needs of absolute beginners.
As no critical writing worth mentioning has yet been directed toward the brothers Quintero, notwithstanding their great popularity in Spain and Italy, the introduction is perforce in the nature of pioneer work.
I wish to express my very sincere gratitude to the authors of these comedies, who first gave their courteous authorization to reprint, and then extended their generosity so far as to furnish information which would have been wholly inaccessible otherwise. Without their graciously manifested kindness, this book could obviously never have appeared.