The semiotics of disguise in seventeenth‐century Spanish theatre

Abstract

Summary The theatrical phenomenon of the disguise in two seventeenth‐century Spanish plays is examined in terms of the sender‐message‐receiver transaction. This disguise is seen as a ‘sign‐vehicle’ manifesting high semiotic flexibility as it denotes and at the same time connotes meaning on more than one level. The Don Juan disguise in El burladorde Sevilla (The Deceitful Trickster of Seville) by Tirso de Molina and the Rosaura, Clotaldo and Basilio disguises in La vida es sueno (Life is a Dream) by Calderon de la Barca are shown to communicate their message to a destination receiver by means of a number of codes ‐extratextual, intertextual and intratextual ‐ which are illustrated in diagram form and explicated in detail. The conclusion reached is that the disguise event is a tangible theatrical device which effectively integrates the themes that a worldly concept of life is an illusion, a dream and a stage and that man's task is to separate the true from the false, the real from the illusory.