SOURCE: Suárez, José I. “Characterization of the Elderly in Vicentine Drama.” South Atlantic Review 62, no. 1 (winter, 1997): 34-42.

In the following essay, Suárez traces the way Vicente represented old people in his dramas; for the most part, the elderly are comic figures derided for their foolish and lecherous behavior.

Literary characterization of the elderly may be traced to the oral tradition. By the age of Homer, conflict between young and old was already common in Greek mythology. Uranus's children castrated him and one, Cronus, so hated his own offspring that he devoured them. Zeus, god of gods, attacked and conquered his father Cronus and the Giants, his father's half brothers. In the Iliad, however, depiction of the old is characterized more by veneration than by conflict. Achilles honors aging Nestor by awarding him the fifth prize in the funeral events both because of his age and because...