Los testimonios únicos en manuscritos-copia. Vivir en variantes

Abstract

[EN]In this paper I examine the problematic nature of unique testimonies in nonautograph manuscript copies of Spanish Golden Age theater. These unique testimonies exist in an ‘unstable provisionality’, as demonstrated by the case of Cepeda’s La española, which went from a single known witness to three in just three years. Through the examples of two unpublished loas from the Arxiu de la Ciutat de Barcelona, as well as of the play San Ginés, I stress how these manuscripts require careful editorial work due the variety of phenomena that can appear in them and that require a solution: copying errors, cultural misunderstandings, metrical problems, textual gaps, and alterations in verse order. I also highlight the importance of the materiality of manuscripts (tears, stains, defective bindings) in textual transmission and the value that the interventions of contemporary hands can serve as potentially valid corrections. In short, editing a Golden Age dramatic text with a single witness requires meticulous philological work that considers both the specific characteristics of the manuscript and the theatrical context in which it was generated and circulated, always remaining alert to the ‘living in variants’ that characterizes Spanish Golden Age theater.