CASTILLO SOLORZANO, ALONSO DE

born 1584, Tordesillas, Spain died 1648 Spanish novelist and playwright whose ingenuity expressed itself best in his short stories. His father served in the court of the Duke of Alba and the son with the Marqus del Villar and two marqueses de los Vlez. His stories are usually of adventure but treated with wit and sophistication. Many of his tales are strung together by an artifice or are arranged, in indirect imitation of the Decameron, within a framework. Examples are: Jornadas alegres (1626; Gay Trips) and Noches de placer (1631; Nights of Pleasure). His picaresque novels make much of the female pcara (rogue) as protagonist or adjutant.