The Mind and Art of Calderón
Essays on the Comedias

Professor Parker's essays provide a wide-ranging survey of the work of Calderón, the greatest exponent of Spanish Golden Age drama.

Alexander Augustine Parker (Author), Deborah Kong (Edited by)

9780521121170, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 15 October 2009

432 pages
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.4 cm, 0.63 kg

Don Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–81) was, with Lope de Vega, the greatest exponent of Spanish Golden Age drama. Professor Parker's essays are the fruits of a highly distinguished career spanning forty-five years. They provide a wide-ranging survey of Calderón's secular, three-act plays (comedias) through detailed analyses of individual works. The themes found in the plays are studied in relation to the background of ideas in seventeenth-century Spain and to the development of Calderón's own view of the intellectual life and the social, ethical and moral problems of this age. From the tensions of Calderón's early family life and his intellectual struggle with the associated problems, the book passes to the wider tensions in the social and political life of his time, and concludes with a demonstration of how Calderón raises all these human problems onto a wide 'philosophical' level through his use of myths and symbols.

Author's preface
Editor's preface
Introduction
1. Stylistic and dramatic craftsmanship
2. From experience to myth
3. The tensions of social life
4. The tensions of public life
5. From symbol to myth
Epilogue
Notes
Index.

Subject Areas: Literary studies: general [DSB]