SOURCE: “Tirso de Molina's Old Testament Plays,” in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies, Vol. XXVII, No. 107, July-September, 1950, pp. 149-63.

In the following essay, Metford examines de Molina's religious background, which compelled him to write about the Old Testament, and how his knowledge of the human mind transformed his plays into works of art.

Like most dramatists of the Golden Age, Tirso de Molina tried his hand at adapting for the stage stories from the Old Testament. Three comedias of this type, acknowledged to be his, survive, but it is conceivable that he wrote others in collaboration, or that some from his pen now pass under the name of other dramatists. His extant plays are: La Mejor Espigadera, a re-creation of the ever popular history of Ruth; La Venganza de Tamar, which turns on Amnon's incestuous passion (2 Samuel, xiii); and La Mujer que manda en casa, a version of Jezebel's...