The Prince and the Pauper:

Embodying Royalty in Calderonian Drama

Ariadna Garca-Bryce
Reed College

Abstract
This analysis of Calderonian drama reflects upon the connection between religion
and monarchy in Habsburg Spain. Where the incarnations of the Christian ruler
in La vida es sueo and El mdico de su honra are consistent with curial iconography
and social convention in their positive representation of prudent rulership, El prncipe constante presents a messianic royalty that departs from the ethos of courtly
restraint, centring as it does on the princes pathos-ridden martyrdom which is
rendered a supreme act of political redemption. While the containment of passions
promoted in La vida es sueo and El mdico de su honra accords with the rationalization of social life that occurred in tandem with increased institutionalization
and bureaucratization, the sacrificial spectacle foregrounded in El prncipe constante
resists such trends. This resistance, it is argued, stands as a timely commentary on
the shortcomings of courtly constraint. Finally, the rational and pre-rational forms
of political exhibition studied here play a formative role in a nascent modern state
where the relationship between religion, art and power is in flux.
Resumen
A travs del examen de tres obras de Caldern de la Barca, este artculo destaca
dos modelos bien diferenciados de entender el vnculo entre la religin y el poder
en la Espaa de los Habsburgo. Contrariamente a la celebracin del rey prudente
que hallamos en La vida es sueo y El mdico de su honra, El prncipe constante pone de
manifiesto una visin mesinica del soberano. Al presentar el martirio del prncipe como mximo vehculo de redencin poltica, esta ltima obra subvierte la
tica de la discrecin cortesana. El acento puesto en el tormento fsico y emocional
rompe con las normas de contencin que caracterizan tanto La vida es sueo como
El mdico de su honra. Mientras dichas normas responden a la racionalizacin de la
vida poltica, i.e. a la institucionalizacin y burocratizacin del estado absolutista,
el espectacular sacrificio representado en El prncipe constante revela una clara resistencia al pragmatismo emergente. Nos hallamos frente a un comentario sobre las
limitaciones de la poltica de la discrecin que prevalece en los centros del poder.
Ms importante an, se sostiene aqu que las dos formas de abordar lo poltico as
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como los recursos psicolgicos y simblicos que conllevan, juegan un rol formativo
en el estado moderno, en el cual los intercambios entre el arte, la religin y el poder
son marcadamente fluctuantes.

Thanks to still recent scholarly turns, our understanding of how to read Caldern
de la Barcas plays in context has grown considerably. Where the emphasis
of earlier scholarship on the conceptual and moral coherence of his comedia
(Parker 1976; Wilson 1965; Sorensen 1981; Sullivan 1979) effectively countered
reductive characterizations that had lingered on since the Enlightenment, its
functioning within the world of spectacle was left largely unattended.1 But in
the last two decades, as critics ultimately abandoned the depiction of Calderonian drama as a propagandistic tool whose formal excesses compromised its
intellectual and aesthetic worth, there has been renewed interest in situating it
in the framework of Tridentine cultural display. No longer regarding the sociopolitical embeddedness of Calderns works as necessarily curtailing their depth
of meaning or artistic stature, scholars find a rich field of analysis in their sensorial content (Amadei-Pulice 1990; Cascardi 1997; Cull 1992; Dez Borque 2000;
de Armas 1999; Greer 1989; Mitchell 1996; Rull 2004). Part of a growing trend
affecting early modern studies as a whole, such reflection on the nuanced interrelatedness of textual, visual, and performed art forms has, of course, also been
furthered by New Historicist approaches. Challenging oversimplifications of the
so-called cultura dirigida (Maravall 1983) as a calcified product of Catholic state
agenda, these approaches grant post-Trent spectacle considerable creative and
ideological agency (Greer 1997).2
Coinciding with the notion of a fluid antiguo rgimen imaginary, the present
article is particularly interested in the divergent figurations of royalty circulating
in Habsburg Spain. If, on the one hand, Habsburg monarchical symbolism can
be characterized as resolutely theocratic, the nature of the connection between
religion and government is by no means etched in stone. We are, after all, in the
midst of an incipient as well as unstable modernization process in which the rise
of reason-of-state theories develops in tandem with a continued attachment to
pre-modern forms of religiosity (Bouza 1997: 24). As is attested to by Calderonian
drama, pious rulership has more than one face, varying in the extent to which
it embraces secular wisdom. This is particularly well demonstrated through the
contrast between the figure of the royal Infante in El prncipe constante (1629) and
those of the sovereigns in La vida es sueo (1635) and El mdico de su honra (1635).
Where the first play links the restoration of political hegemony to a spectacle
of Christian martyrdom, the latter present more secularized monarchs who
1 See Durn and Gonzlez Echevarra (1976) for a summary of Enlightenment and postEnlightenment critiques of Calderns aesthetic and ideological limitations.
2 As some recent scholarship has proved (see Lewis and Snchez 1999; Spadaccini and
Martnez Estudillo 2005), Maravalls work can also be said to have provided a productive
blueprint for subsequent articulations of the relationship between post-Trent cultural
production and the Counter-Reformation state. This connection need not be interpreted
as signifying a lack of cultural fluidity, as will be further shown here.

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preserve order through the exercise of prudence. At one level, I shall argue that
these distinct forms of envisaging royalty draw from different realms of cultural
practice. But it must also be added that both realms can be said to play a formative role in conditioning the relationship between the Habsburg king and his
subjects.
El prncipe constante is, as will be shown, most immediately identified with
contemplative and penitential practices surrounding the cult of the passion. The
other two plays, meanwhile, make use of some of the core tropes of court pictorial programmes, palatine ceremony, and royal advice books, which attempt to
reconcile Christian rulership with worldly demands. Certainly, one might attribute the particular differences in the plays treatment of the royal body to the
fact that the first work is about a prince who is not destined to become king (it
is his older brother, Duarte, who inherits the throne from his father, Joao I),
whereas in El mdico de su honra Don Pedro is king and in La vida es sueo Segismundo is in direct line for the throne. However, my main concern here is not so
much why, from a thematic standpoint, these plays dramatize politics as they
do, but rather how they deploy contrasting embodiments of legitimate authority which attest to the coexistence, in Baroque Spain, of starkly different ways
of formulating the connection between politics and theology. While they are
both situated within a body-centered (Berger 1987) political scheme founded
on the notion that the corporeal dissemination of power emanates from the
person of the sovereign, the competing models of rulership under consideration
show the degree to which Habsburg body politics and its underlying ideological
assumptions are in flux. In one respect, the link between Christ and king, among
the central conceits of the antiguo rgimen, meant the adaptation of piety to a
pragmatically inclined courtly ethos which stood at the centre of an expansive
institutional order. But at the same time, messianic idealism, although having a
symbolic charge antithetical to that of institutionalized pragmatism, continues
to occupy a pre-eminent social role in the nascent modern state.
In thinking about these different projections of piety in the framework of
image-construction, I shed light on the emotional and psychological dynamics
that were so central to early modern political life. This line of thought, I would
contend, provides a necessary response to those past studies that have analysed
the above-mentioned comedias as exemplifying a trenchant ethicist stance
in opposition to the influence of a growing secular pragmatism (Rupp 1996).
Firstly, by attending to the plays references to the physical and symbolic projection of the royal body, we become alerted to some key distinctions in their ideological implications. The accompanying assumption that political authority is
understood as a conscious fabrication aimed at wielding a particular effect over
an audience, moreover, helps us relativize the somewhat simplistic dichotomy
posited by ethicist readings, between a practical and a moralizing politics.
Such readings, furthermore, tend to overlook the fact that even the so-called
ethicist specula principi writers those, like Pedro de Rivadeneira and Francisco
de Quevedo, who were strongest in their insistence on Christian principles and

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in their religious objections to Machiavellian expediency are political realists in

their own right. Despite their denunciation of the evils of a secularized razn de
estado, these Counter-Reformation ideologues view political authority very much
along the lines of an instrumentalist craft. While they are adamant about the
necessity of keeping politics within moral bounds, they are extremely mindful
of the need to adapt religious convictions to concrete political circumstances.
In this respect, they are very much part of the trajectory developing in the
course of the seventeenth century towards an ever-more pronounced emphasis
on savvy calculation, a process which culminates with Saavedra Fajardos and
Baltasar Gracins promotion of courtly ruse (Robbins 2007).
If on one level, by allowing for some autonomy from moral constraint, such
a trend appears to increase individual agency, on another, it is marked by a
doctrinal mistrust of human understanding. Thus, often accompanying the
vindication of mundane ingenuity is a strong scepticism in regard to earthly
knowledge, reflected quite ubiquitously across moral, political, and dramatic
literature, in which the difficulty of distinguishing appearances from reality
becomes a central topic (Robbins 2007: 88; 91; 108). Calderns theatre is, of
course, no exception. As is shown by its fluctuation between a messianic and a
more disenchanted secularized vision of royalty, this corpus constitutes a salient
representation of what Robbins refers to as the epistemological uncertainty
that arises with the turn away from moral absolutes and from a humanist confi3
dence in intellectual and sensorial perception. In their elaborate reflection on
politics as a form of public image-construction, the comedias under consideration hold up a specular lens to society, shedding light on both the resources
and limitations of the theatre of power. Palpable in their changing portrayals
of monarchy is a strong awareness of the fact that, whether clad as reasoned
pragmatism or recalcitrant idealism, rulership operates within spectacular and
rhetorical parameters, devoted as it is to the slippery task of winning hearts and
minds.
Prudent Piety
From the reign of Philip II onward, the scale and sophistication of the propagandistic apparatus increased dramatically, setting the foundations for a centralized state (Bouza 1998). Under his regime the figure of the planet king was
infused with new life through the burgeoning of different mediums, including
iconographic programmes, court and public ceremonies, printed matter, and
church sermons which imaginatively refashioned classical imperial imagery
in the construction of a formidable Catholic ruler who combined the dignity
of the seasoned statesman with the aura of the pious devotee (Tanner 1993:
148). Endowing the legacy of the glorious warrior with a renewed sense of moral
mission, the symbols of his majesty were orchestrated and deployed as means of
3 See Forcione (2009) for an encompassing treatment of how early modern drama registers
such epochal tensions.

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Iberian unification. Illustrative in this respect is the diffusion, in the late 1500s,
of printed illustrations targeted at rallying Portuguese adherence to Spanish
authority. Among these is an emblem that pairs national consolidation with
world dominion by displaying a shield with the symbols of Castile, Leon, Aragon,
Navarre, and Portugal, mounted on top of a globe showing the different continents brought together under Spain (Bouza 1998: 77).
Also symptomatic of the crowns efforts to inform a nascent public sphere
is its active involvement in religious life. From the mandating, across all the
churches of the realm, of synchronized church prayers for Philip IIs wellbeing (Bouza 1998: 14647), to the increased intervention in the organization
of Corpus Christi festivals (Verdi Webster 1993), to the en masse fabrication of
pictorial works identifying king and Christ (Bouza 1998) developments that
continue in his successors reigns it is clear that rulership is being conceived as
a large-scale enterprise aimed at shaping a growing public body. Occurring as it
does in the context of the expanding institutionalization and bureaucratization
that marks a transition from the age of personalized administration to that of
depersonalized government machines (Bourdieu 2005), this brand of Christian
rule yields a stately royal dignity. While the kings authority is associated with
divine providence, the persona of the sovereign is also very much determined
by his role as civic functionary. This requirement is also related to the longstanding Iberian tradition of the ruler as public servant. Even as the Spanish
king took on absolutist traits, he maintained much more than English and
French royalty a human identity (Stradling 1988: 14). Political legitimacy is,
from this perspective, anchored in a careful equilibrium between the privileged
connection to cosmic forces and dutiful adherence to a republican abstention
from usurping supreme power (Santa Mara 1617: 13).
The fact that royal devoutness was fashioned in such a way as to conform to
civic measure is amply attested to by the myriad mirrors-of-princes produced
between the second half of the sixteenth century and the first half of the seventeenth. Where post-Trent mirrors generally defined themselves against Machiavellianism, thanks in part to the influence of Lipsiuss Politicorum and Boteros
Della Ragion di stato, the notion that the successful ruler needed to possess a considerable dosage of worldly discretion gained wide acceptance (Robbins 2007: 102).
Hence, through establishing often casuistic distinctions between permissible
and immoral kinds of dissimulation or between good and bad razn de estado,
political writers of the Counter Reformation allowed themselves to embrace the
logic of realpolitik. It is, indeed, roundly significant that even the more doctrinal
among them coincide in underscoring prudence as the principal virtue of the
Christian ruler (Rivadeneira 1952: 525; Santa Mara 1617: 174; Fernndez-Santamara 1986: 77123; Bireley 1990: 82). Guarded conduct, distinguished by verbal
discretion and emotional composure were universally considered crucial to the
conservation of reputacin, on which the fate of the monarchy was thought to
rest. The imperative of keeping the passions in check, moreover, marked royal
comportment in very concrete ways. As has been well documented by historians,

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the Spanish Habsburgs were, in fact, renowned for their rigidity and restrained
expression (Klber-Monod 1999: 135; Elliott 1989).
What we have here, as Cascardi has pointed out (1992: 25657), is a pronounced
rationalization of social conduct, the promotion of a controlled body, well exercised in the arts of calculation and dissimulation. Among the most eloquent
exponents of these skills, Baltasar Gracin expresses them as chief guarantors of social success. Continuous in many respects with Renaissance ideals of
sprezzatura (Castiglione 1959: 43), the ethos delineated in his lean manual, El
hroe, promotes a subtle artfulness founded on verbal and physical decorum.
Son los achaques de la voluntad desmayos de la reputacin, he warns, y si se
declaran, muere commnmente. El primer esfuerzo llega a violentarlos, a disimularlos el segundo (Gracin 1996: 8). The laying bare of raw human emotion,
then, is considered damaging to individual reputation as well as threatening
to a social system founded on civilizing principles. Famously described by
Norbert Elias (1994) and Roger Chartier (1997: 96) as a means of containing the
social violence characteristic of feudal periods, such principles are furthered, in
varying degrees, in the writings of Gracin and his contemporaries through the
promotion of polished interpersonal exchange. Discretion is thought crucial to
constructing political legitimacy because it maintains the proper mean between
brash omnipotence and excessive humility. By abstaining from undue emotional
display, the king evokes his formidable power, but without openly imposing it.
Indeed, the quintessential mark of the varn gigante or the varn mximo
(Gracin 1996: 5) at the height of social prestige was his ability to command
respect and obedience while appearing not to have this as a primordial objective. Hence the political parable, narrated in El hroe, of the subject who throws
himself at King Alfonsos feet when he spots him pruning grapevines in an
isolated location. Oh, triunfo de una eminencia! remarks Gracin celebrating
this royal exertion. Anhele a ella el varn raro, con seguridad de que lo que
costar de fatiga lo lograr de celebridad (1996:18). Closing the chapter with an
allusion to Hercules labours, Gracin punctuates the intensive and deliberate
self-fashioning process necessary to the cultivation of authority, an effort which,
as he repeatedly points out, must seem unpresumptuous so as to gain adherents.
It is important to underscore that such social grace is conceived as being in the
interest not only of the ruler but also of the larger social order, as it keeps the
peace by ensuring that subjects yield to the will of their sovereign of their own
accord, thereby avoiding feelings of oppression which might lead to resentment
or rebellion.
La vida es sueo and El mdico de su honra, I would contend, participate in this
highly rationalized political scheme. Both plays suggest that the kings main
duty is that of safeguarding the civilizing process and conserving social order.
In El mdico de su honra, King Pedro craftily veils a gruesome death from public
view, and in La vida es sueo, Prince Segismundo, after undergoing considerable
suffering, gains political legitimacy once he has mastered the art of self-control.
But at the same time, these comedias register the dangers and contradictions

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with which mundane power is fraught. In this sense, they might be said to differ
somewhat from Gracins triumphalist view of human ingenuity. As Robbins has
pointed out (2007: 156), given his outright promotion of a creative divergence
from moral absolutes, Gracin is somewhat exceptional among his contemporaries in the degree to which he transgresses the careful balance between
ethical and pragmatic criteria attempted by most Tridentine political writers. If
Gracins advice books proclaim political wiles heroic and sublime, Calderonian
drama, even as it identifies with the courtly order, invites much reflection on
its ultimately limited power. To begin with, though, let us focus on the sense in
which Caldern prescribes civic discretion.
In La vida es sueo the process of princely domestication takes on a patently
allegorical dimension through the recurrence of stock rey planeta imagery. Quite
symptomatic is the representation of Segismundos final political consecration.
Says Rosaura of the prince as he emerges from obscure imprisonment to the
light of public recognition,
Generoso Segismundo,
cuya majestad heroica
sale al da de sus hechos
de la noche de sus sombras;
y como el mayor planeta,
que en los brazos de la aurora
se restituye luciente. (Caldern de la Barca 1984: 26902696)

The entire trajectory of Segismundos trials is marked by the repeated contrast

between light and dark, a recognizable allusion to Habsburg solar iconography.
Segismundos tower is initially referred to by Rosaura as a rustic palace que el
sol apenas a mirar se atreve (1984: 58). Hardly visible among the jagged rocks, it
is but a breve luz []/caduca exhalacin, plida estrella (8586), and, yet more
dimly, a sepulchre, the heart of darkness.
La puerta
(mejor dir funesta boca) abierta
est, y desde su centro
nace la noche, pues la engendra dentro. (6972)

The association between the savage prince and the forces of darkness is further
borne out in the account of the eclipse marking his birth.
Los cielos se escurecieron,
temblaron los edificios,
llovieron piedras las nubes,
4
corrieron sangre los ros. (69699)

4 We learn from de Armas (2001) that Calderns use of planetary topoi, as well as the
account of Segismundos shadowy birth, have a very particular historical referent, given
the prophesies that surrounded Philip IVs birth, which had itself occurred on the day of
an eclipse, and given the tensions between the young dissolute Philip and his royal parent.

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The struggle between light and gloom is rehearsed throughout the play, as when
Rosaura, identified with the sun, is accused by Segismundo of fleeing from his
presence. No juntes el ocaso y el oriente, huyendo al primer paso;/que juntos el
oriente y el ocaso,/la lumbre y sombra fra, sers sncopa del da (157377). In
short, since Rosaura embodies the rising sun (el oriente), her leaving would mean
the end of day (ocaso). While during his first botched encounter with court life,
Segismundos bestial conduct has him repelled by the sun and re-enclosed in his
shadowy hovel, once humbled by suffering, he reconfigures his position in the
heavens. Noting his final apotheotic course as rising source of light, he recalls,
towards the end, that Rosauras luminosity has been restored to him: El cielo a
mi presencia la restaura (2689).
From the vast repertoire of Habsburg solar iconography, what most immediately comes to mind here is the hieroglyph for monarchical succession that would
be produced upon the death of Philip IV. Displaying a globe with a sun falling
in the west as another one rises in the east, it reaffirms the reinsertion of providential order guaranteed by the royal heir. The shadows engulfing the sun upon
its demise are only temporary, the inscription proclaims, Aunque un Sol muere
entre sombras/No ay tiniebla que enbarace/Porque luego otro Sol nace (Mnguez
2001: 140). Also of great relevance, especially as concerns the tension between
dark and light operative in the comedia, is the emblem entitled Excaecat candor
(i.e. Brilliance blinds), used in Saavedra Fajardos Empresas polticas (1999: 285).
The emblem presents the earths sphere half shrouded in darkness and half in
light, projected by the suns rays that shine on it from one side. The nocturnal
birds and owls populating the night are shown fleeing from the blinding light
which is in the process of repelling the darkness, the moral lesson at issue being
that malice is reduced by the light of truth, which disperses the cover under
which evil operates.
That such cosmic reordering is tied to the human work of pacification is
emphatically signalled, for one, through Segismundos transformation from
hombre de las fieras (Caldern 1984: 211) into prudent courtier, a change
which is shown to restore stability to the kingdom. The princes first visit to
the court is, indeed, a case study in bestial tyranny. Violating royal protocol,
Segismundo ruthlessly forces his desires upon his subjects, threatening social
harmony. Diametrically opposed to the discreto, who carefully administers his
will rather than blatantly flaunting it, the prince proclaims that his desire is law:
nada me parece justo/en siendo contra mi gusto (141718). In this Hobbesian
state of brutishness, he could not be farther from a curial self-consciousness. As
is strikingly summed up in the following passage from Quevedos Poltica de Dios,
where royal dictums are expressed as extensions of a divine plan, if he wants to
maintain his subjects allegiance, the Christian ruler must make it clear that his
actions are determined by transcendental forces and not by self-serving whim.
In answer to a request for favour from one of his vassals, Quevedos ideal sovereign echoes Christs words, No es de mi daroslo (1966: 94), thereby utterly
divorcing his commands from personal intent. Clearly steeped in this ethos are

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the courtiers who exclaim in dismay at Segismundos affronts.

Calderns identification with enlightened anti-Machiavellianism is, indeed,
heavy-handed. From the princes balking at Astolfos not removing his hat in
his presence an established grandee privilege to his ostentatious threats
to Rosauras honour, to his defenestration of a servant who displeases him,
Segismundos transgressions announce themselves as frontal breaches of royal
self-possession. Further reinforcing the plays political didacticism is the sobering
reflection uttered by Segismundo once he has learned the limitations of human
power. When, towards the end of the comedia, a crowd rushes to rescue him from
his tower and claim him legitimate heir to the throne, he expresses a reasoned
scepticism. Otra vez queris que vea/entre sombras y bosquejos/la majested y
la pompa/desvanecida del viento? (Caldern 1984: 231013). Once more, we are
presented with a topical dictum of courtly pietas preponderant in political literature and emblematics. A salient instance is formulated by Saavedra Fajardo,
whose treatise on government concludes with a sonnet on the rulers mortality.
Illustrated with an emblem showing a crown and sceptre strewn on the ground
amid the ruins of a once noble construction, alongside a human skull, the poem
meditates that in the face of death the king is like any other mortal. The awareness of majestys ephemeralness is, in effect, considered central to the kings
education, for only if he knows that royal pomp is temporary will he wear it
wisely. Santa Mara delivers a similar warning:
Vn Rey vestido de purpura con grande magestad sentado en vn trono, conforme a su
grandeza, graue, seuero, y terrible en la aparencia, y en el hecho todo nada. Como
pintura de mano del Griego, que puesta en alto, y Mirada de lexos, parece muy bien,
y representa mucho; pero de cerca todo es rayas y borrones. (1617: 15)

While strongly doctrinal, such pious lessons, as previously mentioned, are

grounded in a pragmatic vision of power as heightened prudence. Embodying
prudence as a high tower that allows the king to see everything around him, Santa
Mara declares that es virtud, que haze a los Reyes muy semejantes a Dios (132).
Neither should we forget prudences determinant role in the winning of public
opinion: tanto tendra de prudencia, quanto tuuiere de virtud: y a essa medida
sera tambien la autoridad, credito, y opinion que tendra con el pueblo (132). This
outlook is reinforced at the end of La vida es sueo. It is no coincidence that the
final accolades celebrating Segismundos new authority are Tu ingenio a todos
admira (Caldern 1984: 3302) and Qu discreto y qu prudente! (3304). Having
vanquished his savage self and exhibited notable dignity, the prince pacifies his
subjects and secures their loyalty. His decreeing of the paired marriages of
Rosaura to Astolfo and of Estrella to himself stand, furthermore, as culminating examples of the conquest of human passion. That is to say, Segismundo has
mastered his role as supreme administrator of the civilizing process. In this
light then, the claim that the most enduring message of La vida es sueo is the
importance of core moral values, proves questionable. Can the play as a whole
mean anything to those who do not share the religious outlook of the author?
asks Rupp. I think it can []. Clotaldos loyalty is the type of fidelity to a just

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cause; Segismundos justice represents true justice; Rosauras honour stands for
a determined self-respect (1996: 8889). As significant, I would counter, is the
works reflection that moral and political authority is a conscious construction
that must be laboriously developed through the tactful exercise of reason.
But it is worth reiterating that where on one level Caldern seemingly consolidates this version of monarchical authority as a calculated fabrication with the
demands of Christian mission, his work also undermines such mythical reassurances. Various references to the volatility of social roles can, thus, be taken in
two different directions: on the one hand, as has been mentioned already, the
enlightened characters awareness of it demonstrates their Christian humilitas.
But at the same time, such references are suggestive of a haunting disbelief in
the political process. It is noteworthy that the ending of the piece the culminating moment of political legitimation is littered with sceptical reminders
about the ephemeral condition of the princes triumph. The allusion to transience is present even in the jubilant words of Segismundos admiring subjects
who, marvelling at his new-found poise, exclaim QUE condicin tan mudada
(1984: 3303), a phrase that, beyond its celebratory tone, signals the instability of
life, understood here as a series of fluid states. This is further reinforced by the
princes fear that his ascendance is one more dream and that he might well soon
find himself once again in the dark tower: estoy temiendo en mis ansias/que he
de despertar y hallarme/otra vez en mi cerrada/prisin (330710).
Perhaps the most telling sign of the unbridgeable chasm between divine
good and human government is the famous episode of the rebel soldier, whose
meaning has been the subject of long-standing debate. There are those, like
Alexander Parker (1971) and Daniel Heiple (1973), who find that Segismundos
severe treatment of the alleged traitor is meant to be understood as justified
punishment, and those, like H. B. Hall (1968), who contend that it stands as an
instance of the cruellest Machiavellianism. Hall holds that the reformed prince
is no more human than his original beastly self: he has simply channelled his
violence into pragmatic self-interest in what is a dehumanizing process to the
extent that it sacrifices spontaneity and affection to reasons of state and codes of
conduct which sanction an act more monstrous in its cold-bloodedness than any
committed by the unregenerate Segismundo (1968: 199). Taken together with
the thoughts on the unstable nature of life, and with Segismundos avowed fear
of finding himself once again reduced to an animal condition, the condemnation
of the rebel soldier, I would concur, casts a shadow on the princes consecration.
However, to view the episode principally as an indictment of Segismundo as
representative of an evil razn de estado, is to overlook the plays nuanced conversation with current political theoretical debates. Taking into consideration the
complicated and tenuous balance between pragmatism and idealism that, as
discussed above, informs the anti-Machiavellian tradition, it is, I would suggest,
most productive to regard the episode at issue as an additional reflection on the
tensions lying at the core of enlightened Christian politics. It is not, in other
words, that Segismundo is a bad politician, but rather that he represents the

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contradictions that are an inevitable part of political practice, operating as it

does in the uncertain realm of ever-changing circumstances. In this sense, then,
I would agree with the claim that the soldiers imprisonment would not have
been understood as a flagrant abuse of power, although again, I would not go as
far as to say that it exemplifies justice, as that would ignore the sense in which
Caldern is, precisely, problematizing the very definition of justice.
Steering clear of both idealizing and vilifying interpretations of Segismundos
conduct, I would underline that we are, rather, before a sophisticated
representation of the shortcomings as well as the powers of prudent rulership.
In sum, just as it would be short-sighted to deny the works dark commentaries
on realpolitik, it would be equally wrong-headed to overlook its endorsements
of prudence. Genuinely multi-perspectival, La vida es sueo encompasses both
outlooks. As seen in the luminous images that it associates with Segismundos
education, it celebrates the exercise of a reasoned piety, but it does so without
turning a blind eye to the fact that the sun king cannot be eternally safe from the
forces of darkness that may splinter the tenuous bonds between might and right.
Like its contemporary La vida es sueo, El mdico de su honra ponders the difficulties assailing effective rulership, although here the doubts about achieving a
political and ethical stability are yet more pronounced. The prudent king, once
again, is associated with triumphalist Habsburg myth, as in Doa Leonors first
address to the king:
Pedro, a quien llama el mundo Justiciero,
planeta soberano de Castilla,
a cuya luz se alumbra este hemisfero;
Jpiter espaol. (Caldern de la Barca 1989: 599612)

But along with such evocations of the exalted planet king is a sobering portrayal
of the painstaking and tension-ridden process of conserving monarchical legitimacy. Like Segismundo in his wisest hour, Don Pedro understands his function
as steward of human impulses, managing the conduct of those around him so as
to curb violent outburst. Embracing his identity as principal actor on a magnificent stage (Brown and Elliott 1980: 31), to borrow from a now classic work on
the theatrical nature of Habsburg court life, he is conscious that he governs in
the sinuous realm of la exhibicin del ser social (Chartier 2000: 79). Based on
the controversial Peter I of Castile, termed el Cruel by his enemies and el Justiciero
by his friends, Calderns king shows that these two titles are not, in essence,
antithetical to one another. As Cascardi has contended, the playwright recognizes the complicated nature of human justice (1985: 174; see also Fox 1982).
While knowing full well that Gutierre is guilty of having ordered his wifes
murder, Pedro abstains from confronting him, opting instead for covering up the
crime and arranging for Gutierres marriage to Leonor, whom he once courted.
Roundly symptomatic is the sovereigns reaction to Gutierres exposing his wifes
bloodied body. Feigning belief in the guilty widowers fraudulent account of
Mencas accidental death, upon viewing the corpse, the king, after a sotto voce
reminder to himself to exercise caution, demands that it be hidden from view:

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(Aqu
la prudencia es de importancia:
mucho en reportarme har:
tom notable venganza.)
Cubrid ese horror que asombra,
ese prodigio que espanta,
espectculo que admira,
smbolo de la desgracia. (1989: 28722879)

Like an archetypical discreto who conquers his opponent by regulating los

achaques de la voluntad, Pedro imposes his will while avoiding any overt
reaction to the cruel deed. In his final exchange with Gutierre, he overcomes his
resistance to marrying Leonor through ingenious double-entendre. In response
to Gutierres alarmed question about what he might do should he find the
princes dagger behind his own bed, the king responds Presumir que hay en el
mundo/mil sobornadas criadas,/y apelar a la cordura (29102912). Heavy with
irony, the monarchs rhetoric evinces his full knowledge of the crime, without,
however, explicitly challenging Gutierres expression of such an incident as
purely hypothetical. His final response to Gutierres anguish-ridden question
about what he should do should he confirm his future wifes guilt, could not be
more pointed: Sangralla (2928). As telling is his final suggestion that Gutierre
erase the blood stains from the door of his house.
It is worth noting that identifying Pedros conduct with an epochal investment in the sublimation of the passions (Kahn and Saccamano 2006: 2) does
not dispute the bases for past studies emphasizing his cruelty and imperfect
judgement (Cruickshank 1989: 44), although it does steer these towards a very
different conclusion. Don Pedros critics would point at, among other things,
his failure to carry out true justice and the plays reiterated emphasis on his
severity. Specifically at issue in the attribution of injustice is the kings complicity with Gutierres lie, and further, his, albeit inadvertent, instigation of the
crime: the jealous husbands initial suspicions are further confirmed when,
concealed behind a curtain by the sovereign, he hears Enriques erroneously
incriminating testimony. Certainly, from a categorically moral standpoint, the
kings shortcomings are evident. But we are no longer in an era in which politics
is considered a branch of ethics (Viroli 1992: 1). In the seventeenth century,
the question most pressing to the Habsburg king was no longer how to do good,
but rather how to effectively respond to political adversity or, in other words,
to master the art of dealing with contingent events, with fickle fortune (1992:
127). Moral boundaries were thus important, not in an absolute sense, as the
exclusive guide to action, but rather in relation to the mundane task of projecting the legitimacy necessary to conserve order. Of main concern was the aura
of moral authority, i.e. reputacin. El mdico de su honra is, in this sense, a most
timely political allegory, for it illustrates the theatrical foundations of reputacin
without, however, ignoring the human costs of the civilizing process.
Here again comparison with La vida es sueo is pertinent. Despite the presence
in that play of elements that undercut the triumphalist narrative about

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Segismundos transition from a barbaric to a civilized state, the ending does

offer some consolatory closure. Where the rebel soldier episode and the expressions of foreboding about the fugaciousness of human affairs are sobering, an
inordinate stress is not placed on them. Rather than leaving us with a mounting
sense of alarm, they are cast as the habitual burdens of statesmanship and some
comfort can be derived from the fact that the reformed prince is cognizant of
the challenges of good rulership which stir in him a sense of humility. In this
respect, his mandate is not without ethical grounding. It is difficult to say the
same about El mdico de su honra, which is far more emphatic about the erratic
nature of government. The play lacks moral and political closure, ending as it
does with Mencas butchered body still looming large in the kings allusion to
the possible need to resort to a bloody cure, should suspicions of adultery arise
in Gutierres future marriage. Such allusion, in effect, forces us to contemplate
the fact that the repetition of the cycle of violence is an imminent possibility. In
this direction, Malveena McKendrick sustains that the protagonists of Calderns
honour plays deviate from the balance between ethics and politics aspired to by
the anti-Machiavellians. Her point is not so much that the implicit criticism of
Gutierre and Pedro is founded in a recalcitrant ethicist position, but rather that
it is issued from an enlightened stance that takes into account both a moral and
a practical logic.
The avenging husband is trying to limit the damage, but on the evidence of these
plays violence is not a reliable solution because it does not achieve its aim of
restoring value to life. As a successful application of the ends-justifies-the-means
principle to the family as a microcosm of the state, even Machiavelli, one feels,
would have withheld approval. (McKendrick 1993: 143)

While I utterly agree with this nuanced reading of how the play problematizes
the acts of the jealous husband and the expeditious king, I would add that as
much as these acts are lamented, their necessity is not disputed. That is to say,
arbitrary violence and limited justice are taken as inescapable attributes of
human affairs, not as reflections of exceptionally flawed individuals. Indeed,
neither Gutierre nor Don Pedro are strongly vilified. Contrarily, their monologues and asides show them to be engaged in ethical and practical reasoning,
attempting to resolve problems as best they can. Their failings, moreover, are
accompanied by an ongoing reflection about the ineluctable difficulty of controlling circumstance.
The diminishing faith in the human perceptions that Robbins signals as a
main feature of post-Trent political thought is registered throughout El mdico
de su honra in its constant allusion to the characters lack of agency. In a world
where being is inextricable from social standing, which is, in turn, dependent
upon the vagaries of public opinion, itself often impervious to rational persuasion, characters have limited control over their image. It is, indeed, symptomatic that adverse opinion is seen as jeopardizing identity, as emblematized
in Gutierres acute lament over the possibility of having incurred the kings
displeasure, que mucho menos importa/que yo deje aqu de ser/quien soy, que

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veros airado (Caldern 1989: 901903). Again, the circumstantial condition of

the quien soy is highlighted in the course of Gutierres enactment of his role
as surgeon of his honour. Quin supiera/reducir slo a un discurso,/medir con
sola una idea/ tantos gneros de agravios, tantos linajes de penas! (15861590),
exclaims the jealous husband, alluding to the confusion brought on by the
multiple possible interpretations of the events he has witnessed. He momentarily quiets himself, reflecting, Y as acortemos discursos,/pues todos juntos se
cierran/en que Menca es quien es/y soy quien soy (16471650), meaning that,
given Mencas obvious virtue which, in turn, guarantees his honour, there is
no cause to pursue endless speculation. But the idea of a stable identity, safe
from public onslaught, proves itself but a momentary flight of fancy, rapidly
displaced as Gutierre is conquered by the tyrannical logic of reputacin. As he
himself expresses in his statement that cuando llega/un marido a saber que
hay/celos, faltar la ciencia (17081710), in the slippery terrain of social action
one must proceed in the absence of absolute knowledge. About this passage,
Robbins has illustratively remarked that when faced with the obstacle of scepticism foreclosing any chance of secure and trustworthy knowledge of the world,
Gutierre can only replace reason with action, thoughts with deeds (2007: 173).
Through recurrent analogy between life and fiction the play underlines the
objectifying self-estrangement resulting from such a constraint. This is, among
other instances, emphasized by Mencas brooding that toda soy una ilusin
(Caldern 1989: 1388) under the threatening gaze of her husband. While thus
formulating a nightmarish vision of the politics of prudence, El mdico de su honra
does not provide an alternative. Clearly exemplified here is the tension-ridden
conservatism studied by Norbert Elias (1983). Whereas the tenacious preservation of the conventions of court society by its members might seem paradoxical
in the face of their manifest discontent with its strictures, suggests Elias, from
a sociological perspective it is, in fact, perfectly coherent as their identities are
inextricable from the burdensome political theatre.
The Passionate Prince
The emotional register of politics in El prncipe constante contrasts notably with
that present in La vida es sueo and El mdico de su honra. If in these pieces the
prudent repression of the passions, although heavily conflicted, is a quintessential part of rulership, in the play to which we now turn, the expression of
pathos takes on a key political role. Based on the disastrous 1437 Portuguese
invasion of Tangiers, El prncipe constante tells the story of Prince Fernando, who
offers his body to the enemy for the sake of his kingdom.5 Captured by the king
of Fez, he refuses to benefit from the negotiations led by his brother Enrique,
who proposes the release of the Infante in exchange for Ceuta. Dressed as a slave
and subjected to all kinds of rigours and humiliations, he remains steadfast in
5 See Lumsden-Kouvel (2000) for a very useful account of how the play diverges from its
historical source.

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his resolve to sacrifice. Some decades back, it was argued that the play centred
around an opposition between being and role (Dunn 1979: 89). True, there is,
throughout, a constant reference to the shift from prince to beggar, the stripping
down of the powerful noble to naked man. But, it is fair to say that naked man
is no less a constructed role than is powerful noble. What makes of Fernandos
acts such an effective political spectacle is, precisely, the seamless synthesis that
they establish between the social and natural bodies.
Given the historically fraught relationship between Portugal and Spain,
it might seem surprising that Caldern should use a Portuguese prince as an
example of heroic leadership. It was only recently, in 1580, that Portugal had
come under Spanish rule, after a dynastic crisis. While Philip II made no small
effort to capture the loyalties of the Portuguese (Bouza 1998: 76), and, under
Philip IV, the Count-Duke of Olivares extolled their faithfulness, as was lucidly
observed by an English traveller in the 1620s, Spains neighbours were an old
enemy and uncertain vassals (qtd. in Stradling 1988: 182). He was certainly
proven right by the mounting disenfranchisement of the Portuguese nobility
that would culminate in the 1640 rebellion. Diffidence towards their Iberian
counterparts was also palpable all along among the Spaniards, as shown by
the circulation of stereotypes about the shortsightedness of Portuguese rulers
(Fox 1986: 51). Bearing these geopolitical tensions in mind, I would agree with
Dian Fox that Calderns vindication of Don Fernando is not at odds with them.
Although the work does end in the glorious apotheosis of the Lusitanian warrior
saint, given that the Tangiers expedition and its aftermath on which the play
builds went down in history as one of Portugals salient military embarrassments,
this would not have been taken as a vindication of Portuguese hegemony (1986:
58). Instead, it would have rekindled memories of Portugals defeat while, most
importantly, prescribing invaluable lessons about the potency of exemplary
piousness in moments of adversity. These would have been most useful to the
still young Philip IV in an era of imperial decline in which the moral authority of
the king was often doubted. Fernando, indeed, provides an illustrative counterexample to the discreto. Calderns glorification of the holy man, moreover, is
consistent with the problematization of prudencia implicit in La vida es sueo and
El mdico de su honra. In a sense, then, El prncipe constante provides an additional
perspective through which to make sense of Calderns later conception of
mundane politics. That is, where we might read the identification with courtly
prudence in his subsequent plays as a departure from the messianic idealism
represented in El prncipe constante, as has been made quite plain, that identification is permeated with doctrinal misgivings about the compromise of moral
absolutes. Those later comedias, then, are not to be regarded as contradicting
the preceding works militant fusion of government and theology, but rather as
rethinking it through the prism of a disenchanted political realism.
Renouncing the benefits of calculated power-brokering, Fernando reduces
himself to a beast:

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Mirad que hombre humano soy,
y que afligido y hambriento
muriendo de hambre estoy;
hombres, doleos de m
que una fiera de otra fiera
se compadece. (Caldern de la Barca 1996: 23842388)

Reeking and emaciated, the Infante provokes horror and repulsion, perhaps
most strikingly expressed by the beautiful Moroccan princess, Fnix:
Horror con tu voz me das,
y con tu aliento me hieres;
djame, hombre, qu me quieres,
que no puedo sentir ms? (26042607)

Laden with implications is the princesss alarmed recoiling from the royal
beggar. Her protestations that her feelings have been rattled to the point that
she is left insentient stand as an emphatic indication of the schism between
the domesticated world of court convention and the charismatic sphere of
radical messianism. A creature of courtly life, Fnix is ill-equipped to process
the extreme passions induced by the sacrificial prince. Fernando is a far cry
from the hieratic bodily gestures of the restrained discreto championed by
Gracin. The princes repugnant physical condition is further remarked upon
by the Moroccan general whom he had previously freed out of compassion. The
Muley describes him labouring in the latrines and in the stables, sleeping in an
underground prison and emerging a diseased and stenching invalid. Such is his
condition that the other captives place him on a mat on a dunghill:
los cautivos []
en una msera estera
le ponen en tal lugar
que es, dirlo?, un muladar,
porque es su olor de manera
que nadie puede sufrirle. (20202025)

Contrary to the covering up of the wounded body in El mdico de su honra, undertaken by the king so as to avoid generalized espanto, here the appalling body
of the victim is on exhibition, working its effects on the publics sensibilities.
The reiteration of Fernandos disagreeable smell merits some added reflection, insofar as it so plainly departs from the kind of sensoriality operative in
the previously discussed comedias. In La vida es sueo and El mdico de su honra it is
ocular sensation that is above all emphasized. In the first case, the protagonists
trials are, as we saw, metaphorized as a struggle between light and darkness,
with luminous vision and opaque vision linked to knowledge or lack thereof.
Among the abundant allusions to sight and its failures, the most famous is the
reformed Segismundos reflection,

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Embodying Royalty in Calderonian Drama

Ya
otra vez vi aquesto mesmo
tan clara y distintamente
como agora lo estoy viendo,
y fue sueo. (23482350)

Similarly, in El mdico de su honra vision plays a key symbolic role, from the manipulation of the light by Gutierre in his garden visit to his wife, who is confused
about his identity because of the surrounding darkness, to Pedros repeated
emphasis on hiding the crime from public eyes. Differing from such emphasis
on the elusive nature of physical appearances, the bold physicality signalled in
the above-cited scene from El prncipe constante echoes that of penance rituals.
If the form of imitatio Christi proposed by the anti-Machiavellian theorists is
founded on a cautious reconciliation of pragmatism and idealism, in El Prncipe
Constante we are before a brand of Christianity that goes in the opposite direction, centring as it does on a literal connection with the sacrifice of Christ. In
penance rituals, this paradigmatic narrative of Christian devotion which since
medieval times had become an object of worship and imitation, represented
a negation of earthly values. Spiritual breviaries would recommend that the
faithful form a mental picture of Jesuss suffering and surrender to the sentiments that it elicited in them. Thus, becoming one with the body of Christ, the
devotee would leave all worldly cares behind ( Kempis 1952: 19899). The infliction not only of pronounced psychological but also bodily pain plays a crucial
role here, as is well shown by Susan Verdi Websters study (1993) on Sevillian
processional sculpture in its social context. Illustrating the definition of Christianity as a literal reenactment of the Messiahs torment, Verdi Webster recalls
that in Corpus Christi and Easter celebrations processants would enact different
moments of the Passion, which would include whipping their naked backs with
wooden and leather sticks. The same literalist idea was reflected in the artwork
carried on such occasions, which must, it was thought, have la apariencia de
ser vivo (quoted in Verdi Webster 1993: 108). Following this premise, craftsmen
would strive to give the impression of physical precision, fabricating contraptions that allowed their sculptures to be moved around in order to mimic the
actual positions assumed by Christs body in the via crucis.
As occurs in the above-mentioned rituals, Fernandos physical incarnation
of the Messiahs plight is rooted in a deeply eschatological radicalism, continuous with late antique Christianity. As has been illustrated by Peter Brown, the
practice of pain and self-deprivation which distinguished early Christianity was
conceived as a deliberate subversion of classical incarnations of social honour as
material power and physical grandeur (1981: 2). Along these lines, it is useful to
contrast El prncipe constante with Calderns auto-sacramental, el Nuevo Palacio
del Retiro. There, too, monarchical state is conceived within an eschatological
scheme in which the kings body is identified with that of Christ, this time in
the form of the host.

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Esta blanca Forma, este

crculo breve y pequeo,
capaz esfera es de cuanto
contiene hoy la tierra y cielo.
Blanco pan fue; pero ya,
transustanciado en m mesmo,
no es pan, sus especies s,
porque este solo es mi cuerpo. (Caldern de la Barca 1998: 13631370)

We do have here a direct association between the kings persona and the divine
sacrificial body, but the connection is a conceptual one: the king does not
rehearse the live sacrifice. Consistent with this more aseptic rendering of the
royal image, the auto establishes a hierarchy of the senses, in which hearing is
placed well above the other more lowly faculties. Within this platonic scheme,
sight, smell, taste, and touch are more easily led astray, whereas los favores
de la Fe/slo son para el Odo (1998: 601602). By contrast, moving away from
such physical sublimation, El prncipe constante ventures into the realms of the
grotesque and even the abject in its allusions to intense sensation, ranging from
compassion to shock, to disgust, to admiration. Here, the connection with the
divine resides in an unhinging of the human passions. In this direction, I would
qualify Patersons contention that Fernando stands as an exemplar of Christian
neo-stoicism (1989: 284), by noting that the play pushes Lipsian constancia to a
sensorial extreme that deviates strongly from dispassionate courtly prudencia.
It would be naive to read this fervent enactment of humiliation as a renunciation of political power. Certainly, the power of Fernandos sacrifice reaches
cosmic proportions, as is manifest in his final apotheosis. After the martyrs
death, his sainted body, in festive garb, is exhibited rising above the troops in
consecration of Iberian military triumph. It is tempting to compare this spectacle of theocratic might to imperial iconography: pervasive in Habsburg pictorial works are two-tiered allegorical representations linking historical events
depicted in the lower part of paintings with divine forces. Bearing a marked
structural resemblance to the apotheotic scene in El prncipe constante is el Grecos
well-known Dream of Philip II. A celebration of Spains victory at Lepanto, the
work depicts a kneeling king, behind whom lie piles of plundered Turkish
corpses. Emblazoned in gold letters among the clouds and symmetrically above
the king is the customary inscription, IHS (In hoc signo), a reference to the Habsburgs privileged identification with the cross. Surrounded by an assembled host
of angels and martyrs, the shining letters shed their light directly upon the king,
who looks skywards.
But we must not overlook significant distinctions between the Christian spectacle figured in El prncipe constante and court iconography. Just as the representation of the princes martyrdom violates curial decorum, his apotheosis subverts
the boundary between the royal and the godly body that was reaffirmed in
doctrinal specula principi and respected in imperial artworks. It is, for instance,
to be noted that El Grecos painting emphasizes Philip IIs human condition,

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showing him as a darkly dressed figure without any regalia. This would be
utterly consistent with mainstream anti-Machiavellian mirrors which caution
the sovereign against confusing his person with divinity (Santa Mara 1617: 15).
As Saavedra Fajardo puts it, the monarch is not a vision, but a person of flesh
and blood (1999: 1497). The Spanish king, it was universally recognized, did not
constitute a thaumaturgical presence (Stradling 1988: 14; Bloch 1983).
Why, then, would Caldern endow Fernando with a kind of humilitas that
resists the established bounds of curial piety, and what is the meaning behind the
subsequent deification of his royal body? Where the significance of this choice
can be explained away by categorizing El prncipe constante as an orthodox hagiographic piece, if we concentrate on the corporeal and interpersonal dynamics
figured in the work as they relate to epochal concerns about the construction
of power, its topical relevance becomes quite apparent. By casting the prince as
a holy martyr, the work provides a compelling alternative to the courtly imagination, particularly relevant in an era of pronounced economic and military
demise, when the court was tainted with disrepute. The deterioration of palatine
life as a centre of social and moral prestige had become a pervasive theme in
fictional as well as non-fictional literature (Guevara 1987), as the legitimacy of
the crown was undercut by a variety of factors. Among them, the rise of the
favourite in Philip IIIs reign, a practice that would continue into that of his
successor, contributed to a generalized suspicion of the kings political incompetence. This was, in a sense, further compounded by the increased bureaucratization of government, whose inglorious condition is tellingly captured in the
label Rey papelero, mockingly bestowed upon Philip II. The warrior king, the
public was well aware, had, in practice, become an anachronism. In the reigns
of Philip IIs far weaker successors, the characterization of the king as sedentary
and aloof came to have yet more problematic connotations. While within the
arena of palace ritual and courtly advice literature, prudence continued to be
hailed as a supreme political weapon, the ultimate inconsequence of the theatre
of royal decorum as a means to combat adversity was all too obvious. With this
in mind, one might claim that Fernando symbolizes an anachronistic and, therefore, nostalgic model of militant rulership. However, given the ongoing crisis of
royal reputation that accompanied an ever-growing epochal malaise, as well as
the expressions of heightened political awareness and scepticism manifest in
the other Calderonian comedias I have examined, we can hardly ignore the significance of the Constant prince as a timely departure from the courtly ethos that
dominated the centres of power. On a more adventurous note, one might further
speculate that the work looks forward to popular charismatic models of political
leadership that would, in future centuries, emerge outside the self-contained
courtly sphere.
Caldern was not alone in his realization of the political potential of excessive
emotion. The architects of the Habsburg political machine were by no means
incognizant of it, as is clear from the increased encroachment by the monarchical state, on Christian ritual. So there was a sense in which, through contexts

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such as Corpus Christi festivals or mandated church prayers for royal health, the
figure of the king was connected with the popular sphere. However, within the
rationalized space of the court, founded on the enlightened language of mental
and corporeal containment, the divide between curial and popular sensibility
was marked. At the same time, both sensibilities were part of the same larger
and multi-faceted social structure in which, as Calderonian drama well illustrates, the links between religion, art, and power were constantly being negotiated and reimagined.
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