Juan Ruiz de Alarcón was a Novohispanic writer of the Golden Age who cultivated different variants of dramaturgy.
Background
Juan Ruiz de Alarcón was born in c. 1580 in Taxco, Mexico to parents from distinguished Spanish families. He had four brothers: Pedro Ruiz de Alarcón, who was rector at the College of Saint John Lateran, Hernando Ruiz de Alarcón who was a priest and is known for having written a treatise documenting the non-Christian religious practices of the Nahua Indians of central Mexico, Gaspar and García, about whom little is known.
Education
Juan Ruiz de Alarcón was educated in both Mexico and Spain and obtained two law degrees.
Career
Alarcón returned to Spain in 1614 and became a playwright, and there he received most of his acclaim. He worked as a legal adviser for a while, as an advocate, and as an interim investigating judge, all the while trying repeatedly and unsuccessfully to gain a teaching chair at the University. Returning to Spain about 1611, he entered the household of the marquis de Salinas, and began a frustrating life of job-seeking at court. At the same time, purely as a way of making money apparently, he threw himself into the heady literary and theatrical life of the capital, eventually having a number of his plays performed. His first play, El semejante de sí mismo was unsuccessful, yet it attracted attention to him. By some, he was ridiculed and criticized; from others he obtained support. Perhaps Alarcón's colonial background and certainly his physical defect (he was hunchbacked) inspired the monstrous jibes directed at him, such as "dwarfed camel, " "monkey, " and "trunk poet. " Although Alarcón returned the barbs in kind, bitterness may account for the presence in his plays of characters who lack physical grace but possess impressive moral strength. At the same time, several of his physically attractive characters invite disapproval because of some moral defect. Alarcón wrote less than 30 plays, all in verse. In spite of his output, relatively small in his day, he ranks among the European comic geniuses. His most famous play is La verdad sospechosa (The Suspected Truth), which the French dramatist Pierre Corneille adapted and in part literally translated as Le Menteur (1644; The Liar). The Suspected Truth tells the story of a personable young university graduate who is, in the 17th century sense, a complete caballero except for one notable moral defect: impulsive lying. From this Alarcón developed multiple situations affording sparkling entertainment while pointing out a moral. Many of his protagonists have a ruling passion, a convention adopted by the French playwright Molière in, for example, L'Avare (1668; The Miser). One early play by Alarcón, No hay mal que por bien no venga (From Evil Good Always Springs), features a protagonist to whom comfort is the motive for every decision or act, whether important or trivial, except in matters of honor. Occasionally Alarcón departed from writing his customary thesis plays. Then he abandoned his usual moderation for a more exuberant style, as in El anticristo (The Anti-Christ) and the second part of El tejedor de Segovia (The Segovian Weaver). After thirteen years of legal service to the crown, Alarcón died at Madrid in 1639.