Metatheatrical, Parodic, and Ironic Descriptions of Gallant Language in «Lo que son mujeres» and «Entre bobos anda el juego»

Abstract

To date, most modern studies on Rojas Zorrilla's comic theater have focused on the issues of the comedia de figurón and the so-called cynical comedy, but the problem of Rojas’ ironic distance from the stylistic conventions of love comedies, and specifically from the lengua de estradoor theatrical galant language -a specialized vocabulary of cancionero and Italianate origin criticized and parodied in Lo que son mujeresand Entre bobos anda el juego-remains to be elucidated. Finally, I comment in detail several critics’ hypothesis about the latter comedy, since they deal in particular with its apparently ambiguous ending and the issue of galant language.