Abstract

The public enactment of secrecy is part of the Spanish Golden Age culture. This article presents a research project, which pursues three objectives: 
A study of secrecy as a core characteristic of Spanish Golden Age culture, on the basis of historiographical studies, sources and cultural theories of secrecy.
 A study of Calderonian comedies of secrecy in the context of Golden Age theatre.
 A case study of the comedy El secreto a voces, including a critical edition that also explores the aesthetics of secrecy and the history of early staging in Madrid and Vienna.
 With this threefold approach we aim at a deeper understanding of both Calderón’s originality and of the secret patterns of Baroque culture.

Abstract

In many Calderón’s tragic plays, a room or a hall can turn into a space of violence, if locked or opened against the will of the character (mostly a woman) who lives in it. That is what we can observe in La gran Cenobia, El médico de su honra, El pintor de su deshonra, El mayor monstruo del mundo, La vida es sueño. In comic plays, on the contrary, dramatic situations like these use to turn out well, thanks to ingenious solutions or favorable chance: it is what happens in Amor, honor y poder and La dama duende; whereas the case of No hay cosa como callar confirms the generic ambiguity of this play.

Abstract

This essay studies two myths that have been proposed as sources for La vida es sueño: the myth of Uranus castrated by Saturn and the story of Saturn dethroned by Jupiter. While both have to do with the confrontation between father and son (Basilio and Segismundo), each brings different themes and motifs to the work. The first has to do with the retention of power and the opposition to freedom; while the second appears in its astrological sense. Basilio is related to the malefic influence of Saturn that leads to incarceration. In its positive aspects, the saturnine influences that fall upon Segismundo allow him to eventually conceive a broader vision, thus pardoning the father and becoming part of a new Golden Age presaged by Rosaura/Astraea. Ruben’s painting, Saturn Devouring his Son, help us to visualize the complementarity that exists between the two major myths that are at the basis of the conflict in Calderón’s work

Abstract

At the comedy, Hombre pobre todo es trazas (1628), Calderón uses a lot of resources that apparently only pretend to provoke the humor in the public. However, the economical situation, the mentality and behavioral transformations that means the «régimen dinerario» at XVIIth century in Spain, are essential for the protagonist characterization. It permits, not only enjoy, but also to understand his misleading behavior reasons and the play structure. The social value of money in the Modern economy is brilliantly dramatized by Calderón in a comic way that is always possible to enjoy

Abstract

This paper challenges Don Cruickshank’s interpretation of Amor, honor y poder who speculates on the parallels between some play’s characters (Rey Eduardo, Flérida, Teobaldo) and historical personnages in 1623, when the play was performed in Madrid (Philip IV, María Anna of Spain, Prince of Wales). The author shows the flaws in Cruickshank’s arguments and at the end provides some methodological reflections on the analysis and interpretation of dramatic texts.

Abstract

In this paper we try to investigate the value of cosmic calderonian perspectives in La vida es sueño, showing how from the beginning of this work and through to completion of the whole of it, it is conceived as a dialectic of verticality, establishing the paradigm «down-up» as a dramatic technique in which both the symbolic dimensions of the scenery and its reflection in the moral world play a fundamental role

Abstract

The starry sky, from the Greeks, has had a wide impact on the neo-Platonic world, but from El sueño de Escipión by Ficino and Leon Hebrew, it acquires a decisive importance for the subsequent literature by the possibility of so many relationships and correspondences and it is, moreover, favoured by the science of the time . Calderon used all known sources in mystery plays to expose a cosmology and show the dramatic and lyrical possibilities of this motif

Abstract

This paper analyzes a specific motif, the eagle, as one of the sacramental items best known of the calderonian bestiary. Their study is done through several layers: the compositional, the morphological, the biblical, the political-symbolic and the scenic, showing the complexity of the subject and its peculiar insertion in the sacramental plays of the golden age spanish playwright.

Abstract

For historical reasons, antisemitism is an overarching theme in the Spanish society of the 16th and 17th centuries, and in the literature of the Spanish Golden Age. This essay explores Calderon’s morality plays and seeks to discover our author’s standpoint in regards to Judaism.