Álvaro de Luna in combat: The Presence of the Condestable in Las tranzaderas of Juan Arolas

Abstract

Álvaro de Luna, Constable of Juan II of Castile, is the second historical figure with more presence in the Romancero, being The Cid the first one. As well as representative of a court where the most prominent poets flourished and the ancient Spanish poetry Cancionero was compiled, Luna also represents, for nineteenth century writers, the ambitious courtier with the power fully vested in his hands in those turbulent times, reflecting 19th century itself. All romances, written in verse legends, tales, novels, essays and theatre plays where this figure appears, along this century, build up an important corpus that has never been studied nor edited together before. Juan Arolas is one of the nineteenth-century scholars who uses the historical theme for one of his texts: Las tranzaderas. This poem deals with one of the episodes starring the Constable of Castile in an original way and thus establishes a parallel with the events of his time