Melibea, Plácida and Serafina: three violent deaths in the early renaissance theatre

Abstract

The motif of suicide is commonly present among male characters in Spanish theatre written in the first third of 16th century. However, its presence among female characters has been under-appreciated. In this paper we develop an a study about three suicides caused by love in three plays from a similar time period: the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, by Fernando de Rojas, the Égloga de Plácida y Vitoriano by Juan del Encina and the Comedia Serafina, by Bartolomé de Torres Naharro. For this analysis we take into consideration the perspective of lovesickness and the genre of each play in order to highlight the import of the motif of suicide with female characters.