Abstract

This study presents an analysis of the conventions of the cloak and sword play and their parodic inversion in Solís’ El doctor Carlino. In the decade of 1630 the cloak and sword play becomes wittier and this essay studies how Solís experiments with these new ways by mixing the prominence of this false doctor —a character drawn from Gongora—, the treatment of space and time and the generalisation of the comical effect.

Abstract

This paper examines the dualities, symmetries and paralelisms of Casa con dos puertas, mala es de guardar, which affect to several aspects of the play, as the argument, the structure, the characters, the spaces and the dialogues. The study of the Calderón’s «perfect mathematics» allows to understand better the shape of this famous cloak and sword play is a better way.

Abstract

The cloak and sword play should be directly linked to mythological festivals, not only because of the common plot structures of both, but also because of further important elements from the cloak and sword play that are adopted by mythological comedies with respect to dramatic rhythm, verisimilitude, and closeness to the spectator. Moreover, the cloak and sword play taught the court audiences to appreciate the complex and exotic mythological productions.

Abstract

The present work analyses the presence of multiple scenic spatiality sequences in cloak and sword plays of Calderon. Multiple scenic spatiality is understood as the use of simultaneous and contiguous dramatic spaces, from a simple ingenious circumstance or a comic scene up to a complex situation of space that is the centre or dramatic core of the argument and can also have symbolic values. The article points to some of the functions of multiple scenic spatiality, moreover to the forms of creation and the different types that we find in the work of Calderon.

Abstract

This paper analyzes the way Calderon rewrote Cada loco con su tema by Hurtado de Mendoza in order to create El agua mansa. One of the main modifications is that the female characters are constructed in a completely different way. This has central implications for the play, because the dramatic conflict rotates around the transformation of the female characters.

Abstract

This article analyzes and characterizes the presence of cloak and sword episodes or incidents («lances de capa y espada») in the limited corpus of Calderon’s five comedias which have a hagiographic content. The peculiarities of each of the comedias will be observed in relation to the way in which the plot and subplot are constructed from the scheme of the episodes that make the main dramatic conflict, with a religious character, more human and complex.These characteristic elements of the cloak and sword plays, once introduced in a comedia of saints, transform some of its typical aspects: they reduce their comic or playful nature and they are generally driven by divine or infernal forces, like in the two famous scenes with the veiled lady in El mágico prodigioso and the muffled figure in El purgatorio de San Patricio.