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were probably false, Calderón was made
the scapegoat for all of the excesses of the
Lerma regime. The duke sheltered himself
by acquiring ecclesiastical status, and it was
his henchman who paid the supreme price.
Calderón's calm and dignified bearing at his
execution gave rise to a phrase that became
proverbial:
Tener más orgullo que Don Rodrigo
en la horca
(Prouder than Rodrigo on the
scaffold).
oned in a tower and reduced to an animal-
istic state of rage. His reaction to changing
circumstances, his subjection to drug-
induced sleep, and his reawakening to the
uncertainty of whether he has dreamed all
or part of his experiences eventually lead
him to the conclusion that in an ever-
changing and elusive reality, all that mat-
ters is doing good. Also pursuing a moral
theme is the
Alcalde de Zalamea
(
The Mayor
of Zalamea
), from 1646. It touches upon
issues of abuse of authority, competing con-
cepts of honor, and pursuit of justice that
resonate over the centuries. His most
impressive
auto sacramental, El gran teatro del
mundo
(
The Great Theater of the World,
ca.
1635) displays a breadth of vision and a
sense of the universality of the mystery of
the Eucharist that transcends the boundar-
ies of court pageantry.
Just as Lope de Vega towers over the
earlier part of the century, Calderón is
generally acclaimed as the greatest drama-
tist of the latter half of the 17th century,
each playwright exhibiting particular
strengths that make his achievements
complementary. Some critics have sought
to limit Calderón's distinction to an
embodiment of Spanish religiosity, but
more acute commentators, notably the
distinguished A. A. Parker, insist that
Calderón is not merely a dramatist who
was forced by his situation to distort his
work to conform to religious clichés but
instead a “theological poet and dramatist
in a deep and legitimate sense.”
Calderón de la Barca, Pedro
(1600-1681)
Spanish dramatist
Born of a good family and educated at the
University of Salamanca, Calderón de la
Barca gained a reputation for dramatic skill
while still in his 20s. Following the death of
the hitherto dominant playwright L
OPE
DE
V
EGA
, in 1635, Calderón was appointed
court dramatist to P
HILIP
IV and remained
associated with the royal court for the
remainder of his life. Following a varied
and sometimes violent career (including
active military service) he was ordained a
priest in 1650.
Both in his earlier secular plays and in
the
autos sacramentales,
plays of religious
symbolism that he created for the royal
court in his later years, Calderón concerned
himself with profoundly moral issues, such
as the conflicting demands of honor and
virtue or predestination and free will.
Among the most highly esteemed of his
more than 150 works is undoubtedly
La
vida es sueño
(
Life Is a Dream
), published in
1635. It is a philosophical-theological drama
in which contrasting perceptions of reality
offer a perennial appeal to modern audi-
ences. Set in a fantasy version of Poland,
the play finds Prince Segismundo impris-
California
Soon after H
ERNÁN
C
ORTÉS
's conquest of the
Aztec Empire in modern M
EXICO
, in the
1520s he began probing the outer limits of
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