Contigo Pan y Cebolla

Contigo Pan y Cebolla

Project Gutenberg's Contigo Pan y Cebolla, by Manuel Eduardo De Gorostiza This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Contigo Pan y Cebolla
Author: Manuel Eduardo De Gorostiza
Release Date: May 17, 2004 [EBook #12368]
Language: Spanish and English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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[Illustration: PERO REPITO QUE NO SE JUEGA CONMIGO (Acto Cuarto, Escena Dos)]
CONTIGO PAN Y CEBOLLA
POR MANUEL EDUARDO DE GOROSTIZA
EDITED WITH NOTES, EXERCISES, AND VOCABULARY BY ELIZABETH MCGUIRE
FORMERLY INSTRUCTOR IN SPANISH UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
1922

PREFACE
"Contigo Pan y Cebolla," a prose comedy of the lightest sort, affords a pleasant and attractive glimpse of certain phases of Spanish life and thought. Manuel Eduardo de Gorostiza is said to have written the play in order to cure his daughter Luisa of her infatuation for a worthy but impecunious suitor; but in addition to this motive his purpose is obviously to entertain.
The theme developed is a family affair, and so the vocabulary is essentially domestic. In this vocabulary of over sixteen hundred words, many of the phrases and expressions appear again and again in the natural fashion of every-day speech.
The text used is that found in Book I of the four-volume edition, "Obras de D. Manuel E. de Gorostiza," M��xico, 1899. From the standpoint of typography this text is lamentably inexact. The necessary corrections have been made, and the accentuation is in accordance with the latest rulings of the Royal Spanish Academy. For the sake of the student one or two passages have been omitted.
Much work has been left to be done by those who read the play as prepared. The Spanish-English vocabulary is limited in most cases to defining the word as it occurs in the text, and frequently only an approximation of the meaning has been attempted. For instance, the English equivalents of the same Latin origin as the sonorous Spanish terms that are used so naturally by the man-servant Bruno and the garrulous Nicolasa would be strangers to the lips of English-speaking individuals of corresponding station.
There has been added a series of questions and topics (Preguntas y Temas) that may serve as suggestions for exercises in composition. The questions follow the thread of the story, but they are not meant to be exhaustive, while the number of topics for descriptive paragraphs or additional dialogue can readily be increased.
Instead of the usual biographical data collected from many sources and presented to the student in English, selections have been taken from a life-sketch of Gorostiza written by the distinguished Mexican Roa B��rcena, who secured his information from Gorostiza's son. Naturally the biographer has thrown into high relief the part which Gorostiza took in the interesting events that occurred in Europe and in the New World during his lifetime. We are mainly concerned with Gorostiza the dramatist. Next to Juan Ruiz de Alarc��n (1581?-1639), Mexico honors him as her greatest modern representative in the dramatic field. Furthermore, the play "Contigo Pan y Cebolla" is given first place on the list of his many literary achievements.
This play the reader is left to gauge by his own standards. No two individual opinions will be exactly alike, and the judgment of non-Spanish critics will naturally be different from that formed by those to whom Spanish is the native tongue. By good fortune there is available a criticism of "Contigo Pan y Cebolla" written by Mariano Jos�� de Larra, and to serve as a guide there have been included here a few paragraphs from the pen of this contemporary of Gorostiza, who was the foremost Spanish satirist and dramatic critic of his time.
Thus the reader has before him specimens of the prose writings of three distinguished men. All three write in Spanish; yet all three differ in style and in temperament. To those readers in America who have hitherto looked for the best things with a backward glance there should be a certain significance in the fact that two of these writers are of Mexican birth.
E. McG.
BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA

CONTENTS
NOTICIA BIOGR��FICA Jos�� M. Roa B��rcena CR��TICA DE CONTIGO PAN Y CEBOLLA M.J. de Larra CONTIGO PAN Y CEBOLLA TEXT NOTES EXERCISES VOCABULARY

NOTICIA BIOGR��FICA
Gorostiza naci�� en nuestro puerto de Veracruz el 13 de octubre de 1789, de una familia espa?ola distinguida, cuyo jefe, el general D. Pedro de Gorostiza, vino a la Nueva Espa?a con el segundo Conde de Revillagigedo, de quien era pariente o amigo, a encargarse del mando civil y militar de aquella plaza. Su madre, D.a Mar��a del Rosario Cepeda, contaba entre sus ascendientes a Santa Teresa de Jes��s,