It Is Not difficult to account for the repeated concern of lopistas with the question of the dating and the versions of La Dorotea. In order to discern Lope's intention in recasting his adventure with Elena Osorio in the unique actión en prosa form, one must first reach some conclusion regarding the stage or stages in his long career at which the work was conceived and composed. There are today few critics who consider the actión en prosa even largely a youthful work. Most see evidence throughout of the workmanship and outlook of the old Lope, not restricting this to passages of necessity late—the horoscope of Fernando-Lope's future, the discussion of a parodied culterano sonnet, the “piscatory idylls” inserted at the last minute as elegiac tributes to Marta de Nevares. And indeed it can hardly be questioned, after the perceptive studies of Vossler and Montesinos, that La Dorotea, as it appeared in 1632, reflects the maturity of its author. In no other way can we account for the special flavor of this work in which all of Lope's life and art appear in a new focus against a background of inexorably fleeting time.