Acceso usuarios
Enrique Fernández
Cervantes¿Los tratos de Argel is reexamined in the light of the political and personal context in which it was written at the beginning of 1580¿s, immediately after Cervantes¿ liberation from captivity. The play is best understood when framed within the context of propagandistic texts produced to help the ransoming orders (Mercedarians and Trinitarians) elicit donations by presenting moving testimony of the captives¿ difficult conditions. Like modern testimonial literature, Los tratos de Argel served simultaneously both a political and a therapeutic purpose: it denounced the political abandonment of the captives in Algiers, and it helped Cervantes find equilibrium through the established form of martyrology.
