Carmen Hsu examines Lope's characterization of the courtesan in a selection of fourteen plays and in La Dorotea. The literature of the courtesan achieves its culmination and transcendence with La Dorotea (1632) by Lope de Vega. Lope's originality lays in his development and renovation ot the type of the emotionally vulnerable courtesan

Prologue by Francisco Márquez Villanueva 1. Courtesans in Classical and Renaissance Literature I. Classical Predecessors — II. The Creation of the Literature of Courtesans in the Italian Renaissance — III. Renaissance Courtesans — IV. Louise Labé and Veronica Franco 2. Beginning of the Portrayals of Courtesans in Spanish Literature I. The World of Prostitution — II. La Celestina — III. Carajicomedia — IV. La Lozana andaluza — V. Antonio de Guevara 3. The Romancero General 4. Lope de Vega’s Comedias 5. The Short Fiction of the Seventeenth Century I. Salas de Barbadillo and Castillo Solórzano — II. María de Zayas y Sotomayor — III. Cervantes and La tía fingida 6. La Dorotea Appendix I: Chapter XXIII of the Capítulo de Reformación (1623) Appendix II: Courtesans in Lope de Vega’s Comedias