1. IntroductionLope de VegaThe text of the playThe context of the playThe sources of the playInterpretations of and critical responses to the playThe play in performanceThe play’s poetryNotes on the play-text and on Golden Age Spanish2. Bibliography3. El castigo sin venganzaActo primeroActo segundoActo tercero4. Commentary5. Selected vocabularyIndex

El castigo sin venganza (1631) is Lope de Vega's greatest tragedy.The dramatist, at the height of his powers, re-works an Italianshort story to explore the complexities of human desire and the grimconsequences of giving in to temptation. The play dramatises the adulterous relationship between the beautiful Casandra, duchess ofFerrara, and her step-son Federico, and the reaction of her husband, the duke,himself a flawed and ambiguous figure.This edition includes an introduction which sets the play in itshistorical and dramatic contexts but also focuses on elements of the genrewith which new readers might be unfamiliar: performance norms, the poetryof the play and the linguistic differences in Golden Age Spanish. The textitself is accompanied by explanatory footnotes, an in-depth commentary anda glossary of less common words. These are informed by up-to-datescholarship on the play from both the Spanish and Anglophone worlds.While this edition of Lope's masterpiece will be of particular use toundergraduates who are new to Spanish Golden Age drama, it will alsoappeal to students at higher levels and all admirers of Spanish GoldenAge theatre.

'Likely to become a set text on Spanish courses in the UK, US and anywhere else that Golden Age drama features.'Alexander Samson, University College London‘Jonathan Thacker is to be highly commended for producing a thoroughly accessible edition of and companion to what is undoubtedly Lope’s greatest tragedy, and clearly one of the great plays of the early modern period that is finally, if belatedly, getting the recognition it deserves both on the page and on the stage.’Susan L. Fischer, Bucknell University, BSS, XCV (2018)