Abstract

It has been traditionally accepted that from 1651 on, when Calderón de la Barca became a priest, the playwright exclusively wrote court plays and autos sacramentales. This idea has to be reviewed with respect to the period of mourning the death of Felipe IV, between 1665 and 1671, a time in which court theatre and autos sacramentales were forbidden. The present article analyses Calderón’s dramatic activity between 1667 and 1670, when the playwright carried out a program of recovery and rewriting of ancient comedies for their representation in the corrales. The copyist Pseudo Matos Fragoso cooperated in that process. He copied several plays by Calderón that were to be represented in the two corrales madrileños by the companies of Manuel Vallejo and Antonio de Escamilla.