Abstract

Starting from the fundamental premise of the insufficiency of a purely descriptive approximation to the Golden Age burlesque comedies, and the need to analyze each text of this genre not only through the conventional characters of comic-absurd playwriting, the present study aims for an analysis of the parody character and of the underl-ying literary functions in Céfalo y Pocris, the only burlesque comedy that we have from Calderón de la Barca. Underlying the necessity to detect a more exact link between the burlesque hypertext and its complex hipotext (where the two works of Calderón take precedence, Celos, aun del aire, matan and Auristela y Lisidante), the study highlights the strong meta-theatrical component of the comedy. Ultimately, through this essential element of the work, the study-stressing the ideas about painting that Calderón leaves us with in his Treaty defending the nobleness of painting-attempts to demonstrate how in Céfalo y Pocris the playwright, in continual allusions to the figurative imagination that theater shares with painting, and in spite of the comic-burlesque regime, confirms the aesthetic and poetic foundations of his playwriting and his worldview.