Transnational Transformations of Zayas’s El castigo de la miseria in France and England

Although María de Zayas y Sotomayor’s only known comedia, La traición en la amistad, remained largely unnoticed until the twentieth century, the contrary is true of one of her tales, El castigo de la miseria (Avarice Punished). Inspired perhaps by two folk-types-the miser tricked out of his wealth and the foolish suitor deceived into marriage by false appearances of wealth and beauty-El castigo de la miseria has been included in anthologies of the picaresque as well as indices of folk-motifs of the genre.1