ABSTRACT
In a Spanish village in 1476, the people rose up against their overlord and killed him, but exactly why they did it is still undecided. The various versions of the event, the chronicles, the reports, the popular stories that arose, the histories, differ in their explanations, depending on who is telling the story, for what purpose, and from what point of view. In recent years, notions such as univocal intention, source, meaning, ground, origin, and spirit have become targets for direct attack by, among others, deconstructionists. “Free-play” has become their catchword for doing away with the historicists’ absolutes. The “natural” or “normative” structures in Spain during Lope’s life include Catholicism, monarchy, imperialism, and hierarchical class structures. Monarchy seemed as natural to Lope as the Spanish he spoke and wrote. Critics who claim that Lope was a “propagandist” for the monarchy and for the nobility have twisted the point.
