'El último godo' and the Dynamics of Urdrama (PDF)

Introduction (p. 3)

It is well-known that dramatists of Spain`s baroque theater turned time and again to the chronicles in search of material for their craft. Indeed, to describe the comedia as a national theater rests in part on the inordinate fondness of audiences and dramatists alike for plays which reconstructed and celebrated las glorias of what we would today refer to as Spanish Medieval and Renaissance history.

In creating El tiltimo godo. Lope F61ix de Vega Carpio had at his disposal not only the rich historical and literary traditions of King Rodrigo with which the spectator would have been familiar, but also a unique work by Miguel de Luna entitled La verdadera hystoria del rey don Rodrigo, which stands out as a major influence on the drama in question. In the introduction to his work, Luna claims to have found and translated a Moorish account of Rodrigo which was composed by Abulcacim Tarif.

Whether the Hystoria is a fictitious creation by Luna, which is highly probable, or in actuality is a factual recording of events, does not affect the significance of the work here. What becomes obvious as one reads Luna`s Hystoria and Lope`s El ultimo godo, is that the dramatist very clearly extracted numerous details from the Moorish chronicle for his plot.

Since Luna`s work purports to be a Moorish account, it naturally contains variations not found in the Christian narratives but which do appear in El ultimo godo. Ramon Menendez Pidal enumerates many of these incidents which Lope gleaned from Luna`s work:

. . . la infanta africana Zara, que se embarca en la maftana de San Juan, y arribada por tormenta a las costas de Espafia, se bautiza y se casa con Rodrigo, a gran pesar del rey Africano, el nombre de Florinda, el texto de la carta que esta escribe a su padre y el suicidio de la dama en Malaga, los amores de Zara, viuda de Rodrigo, con el gobernador moro, aunque este en Lope no se llame Mahometo Gilhair, como en Miguel de Luna,

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