Abstract

The present article analyzes the scenic and dramatic functions of the Sun-King myth. A number of uses of the myth within texts of praise of the Habsburg monarchy are employed to extrapolate possible uses within court theatre. The article uses the Aristotelian analytic differentiation between ergon and parergon and exemplifies it in the loa at the beginning of Calderón’s Fieras afemina amor. This loa makes use of the Sun-King myth to perform the theatrical praise of Mariana de Austria on the stage, at court and within the entire cosmos.