This thesis argues that the playwright and poet from New Spain, Luis de Sandoval Zapata (1620?-1671), freed himself from the social restrictions of his time through his creative work. Sandoval Zapata was a well-educated, land-owning "ciollo" (Creole). His poems are studied within the historical and artistic contexts of the seventeenth century in which the Barroque, a European cultural movement transplanted to the Americas, played an essential role. Connections between Creole patriotism and Baroque aesthetics are traced through the contextualization of his "Relación fúnebre," a politically charged "romance" or ballad. At a time when social life and artistic endeavours were closely regulated, this poet broke with his own literary tradition by paradoxically using the same cultural resources of his time, arguably trascending himself in doing so. This search for autonomy is shown through the close textual analysis of the metaphors used in seven of his sonnets of "desengaño" or desillisionment. / Graduate / guadarra@uvic.ca