Reading Thetis in Tirso de Molina’s El Aquiles

Abad Del Vecchio examines Thetis’ reception in Tirso de Molina’s1El Aquiles, focusing in particular on the agency of the goddess in the play. Abad Del Vecchio’s chapter reveals Tirso’s fleshed-out vision of Thetis, as well as the playwright’s close, intertextual reading of Achilles’ mother as she appears in the Achilleid of Statius. Thetis in El Aquiles has more agency and plays a more cru-cial role than previous scholarship has acknowledged. At the same time, the dialogue enacted also discloses some of Tirso’s predilected scenes of the Achil-leid which feature Thetis.In keeping with the tradition of Chiron as the foster-father of Achilles, Tirso’s play is also seen to engage in the ‘denial of mother-hood’ trope that we see elsewhere in the Thetidian tradition. Abad Del Vecchio maintains that El Aquiles creates a humanized figure of Thetis, and overall demonstrates Thetis’ everlasting appeal in the Spanish Baroque tradition.