Apologetics and Religion in Early Modern Corpus Christi Drama

Beskrivelse

The Spanish Golden Age dramatist Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El gran teatro
del mundo famously ends with shouts of exaltation and joy and an apology of
the play, yet this seminal early modern religious play is situated in a time of social-political crisis, and several of the play’s characters express grave feelings
towards the human condition. The paper will suggest a way to understand why
Calderón still fashioned a theatrum mundi of celebration and not one of metaphysical pessimism otherwise popular at the time. This will be carried out with
a focus on the historical development of the auto sacramental and a reading of
the drama with intratextual reference to Calderón’s thoughts on the purpose of
the genre. The paper thus suggests that in both historical and systematic perspectives
Calderón’s world theatre can and should still be seen in the light of
celebration and of a certain form of theodicy, namely a defence of the world as
a work of art.

Periode	6. maj 2021
Begivenhedstitel	Tenth Annual RefoRC Conference on Early Modern Christianity 2021
Begivenhedstype	Konference
Placering	Budapest, UngarnVis på kort
Grad af anerkendelse	International