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Antonio Mira de Amescua

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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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 Villandrando's 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 Montalban's Para todos (1632), and he collaborated with Montalban and Calderon 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 Bernado de Cabrera: and El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha - are respectively the sources of Rotrou's Don Bernardo de la Cabrere and Belisaire; Moreto's Caer Para levantar is simply a recast of Mira's El Esclavo del demonio, a celebrated drama which clearly influenced Calderon when composing La Devotion de la crux; and there is manifestly a close relation between Mira's La Rueda de la fortuna on the one hand and Corneille's Heraclius and CalderOn'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 espanoles, vol. xlv.