Allegories of Kingship

This study examines issues in politics and political theory in selected works of Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600–1681), the major dramatist of the middle and later decades of the seventeenth century in Spain. By analyzing secular dramas ( comedias ) and religious plays ( autos sacramentales ), Stephen Rupp demonstrates Calderón's awareness of the ideas and institutions of power in Hapsburg Spain and explores the terms of his intervention in the long debate over the principles of Christian st...