The Dramatic World of Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Abstract

After a review of the most important critical approaches to the concept of tragedy in Golden Age theater and Calderón’s tragedies in particular, this chapter analyzes El médico de su honra [The Surgeon of His Own Honor] as an example of Calderón’s tragic art. The thesis is that El médico de su honra can be considered a model play in the trajectory of the Calderonian tragedy, displaying all the characteristics of the Aristotelian model of the pathetic tragedy while simultaneously maintaining some elements typical of the Renaissance tragic model. On the contrary, La vida es sueño [Life is a Dream] can be read as an exploration of the model of tragedy with a happy ending that, while revolving around the medieval theme of changes in fortune, also avoids overt displays of horror and delves into the complexity of the motivations of Basilio and Segismundo. Finally, the chapter will discuss the controversial issue of the presence of the tragic in mythological dramas and how similar dramatic motifs take on different meanings in different theatrical works according to the generic models to which those works respond.