Tirso de Molina: Damned for Despair

Fray Gabriel Túllez, who wrote under the pen-name of Tirso de Molina, is the third great dramatist (with Lope de Vega and Calderón) of the 17th century Spanish theatre. If Lope heads all the rest for sheer inventive vitality and Calderón for well-wrought poetic and intellectual substance, Tirso is supreme as a creator of character.