Tirso de Molina: Mannerism on the Threshold of the Baroque

Continuing the study into the creative work of the Spanish playwright Tirso de Molina, in this article the author focuses on the problems of the writer’s works on the borderline between Mannerism and the Baroque that pose the most important questions of human existence, relations with the world and with God. In a broad historical, cultural, philosophical and religious context, the article analyses autos and ‘dramas about saints’, as well as the two masterpieces by Tirso de Molina — The Man Condemned for Lack of Faith and The Trickster of Seville, or the Stone Guest. In the drama The Man Condemned for Lack of Faith, the traditional image of a Christian righteous is debunked and the exaltation of a sinner is justified. In The Trickster of Seville, or the Stone Guest, criticism of morals is closely intertwined with mythopoetic imagery, and the tragic — with the grotesque, marking the tragicomic decline of the Renaissance and the transition from Mannerism to the problems of the Baroque. The optimistic anthropocentrism of the Renaissance is shifting towards the dynamics and tragedy of being and the heightened emotionality and polarity of the image system.