Written as diversionary pieces to be performed between the main acts of a play, these eight interludes are comic glimpses of a world far removed from courtly elegance or military heroism.

(Applause Books). Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) is Spain's most famous author, primarily because of his celebrated novel Don Quixote . His first love, however, was the theater, for which he wrote extensively. His Interludes , published 400 years ago in 1615, are short, comic plays that explore the underbelly of Renaissance Spanish society. Their characters include hillbillies and con artists, pimps and prostitutes, adulterous wives and jealous husbands, and an array of other comical figures. Cervantes's treatment of them is simultaneously critical and sympathetic. Although interludes tend to be works of light comedy, Cervantes often imbues his with deeper themes. Charles Patterson, a scholar of Hispanic theater, has created translations of the Interludes that are true to the earthiness of the originals but designed to be readily playable for today's actors and accessible to modern audiences. This book includes an introduction that places the plays in context, briefly describing the life of Cervantes, theater in early modern Spain, Cervantes's interludes, and Patterson's approach to translating them. Casual readers, theater and literature students, and professional actors alike will delight in these comedic gems that reveal a less familiar side of one of history's greatest writers.

Best known and loved for DON QUIXOTE,the ground-breaking comic precursor of the modern novel,Cervantes led an extraordinary life every bit as colourful as his works.Born the son of a poor medical practioner,maimed by gunshot as a soldier, held to ransom by Algerian corsairs,and eventually drifting into a literary career,Cervantes could draw upon a range of experience with which to spice up his writings.Written as diversionary pieces to be performed between the main acts of a play,Cervantes's eight interludes included in this anthology are comic gems in their own right.As a genre,'interludes'were generally disliked by the authorities because of their subversive potential,and those by Cervantes are no exception.Crude,rude robust and anarchically refreshing,EIGHT INTERLUDES reveals that even as a playwright Cervantes was ahead of his times.