Antonio Mira de Amescua

Antonio Mira de Amescua (1578? – 1636?), Spanish dramatist, was born at Guadix (Granada) about 1578.

He is said, but doubtfully, to have been the illegitimate son of one Juana Perez; he took orders, obtained a canonry at Guadix, and settled at Madrid early in the 17th century. He is mentioned as a prominent dramatist in "Rojas Villandrandos Loa" (1603), which was written several years before it was published. In 1610, being then arch-dean of Guadix, he accompanied the count de Lemos to Naples, and on his return to Spain was appointed (1619) chaplain to the cardinal Infante Ferdinand of Austria; he is referred to as still alive in Montalbán's "Para todos" (1632), and he collaborated with Montalbán and Calderón in "Polifemo y Circe", printed in 1634. The date of his death is not known.

Mira de Amescua's plays are dispersed in various printed collections, and the absence of a satisfactory edition has prevented, his due recognition. He has an evenness of execution which indicates an artistic conscience uncommon in Spanish playwrights; he resisted the temptation to write too much, and he unites a virile dignity of expression to impressive conception of character.

Two of his plays--"La adversa fortuna de Don Bernardo de Cabrera" and "El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha"--are respectively the sources of Rotrou's "Don Bernardo de la Cabrère" and "Belisaire"; Moreto's "Caer para levantar" is simply a recast of Mira's "El Esclavo del demonio", a celebrated drama which clearly influenced Calderón when composing "La Devoción de la cruz"; and there is manifestly a close relation between Mira's "La Rueda de la fortuna" on the one hand and Corneille's "Héraclius" and Calderón's "En esta vida todo es verdad y todo es mentira". A few of Mira de Amescua's plays are reprinted in the "Biblioteca de autores españoles", vol. xlv.

References

*1911