The ancient concept "The world is a theatre" has been used by poets and philosophers at all times when talking about human conflicts or when describing human society. By focusing on the historical function of this use, the present dissertation examines four plays by Pedro Calderón de la Barca in relation to the schism of the Swedish Wasa dynasty: El sitio de Bredá, La protestación de la fe, La vida es sueño, Afectos de odio y amor. A parallel between Calderon's "auto sacramental" El gran teatro del mundo, Descartes' so called "mask" and the Neoplatonic "Art of Memory" (Giulio Camillo, Giordano Bruno, Robert Fludd) is established in order to explore the ontological and social background of the linguistic term "discourse". The heretic picture created by the European Counter Reformation is studied as the mimetic configuration of a collective fetish. Stephen Greenblatt's notion of "social energy" and Julia Kristeva's account of the fetish in poetical language, are, in this context, discussed with the intention to investigate how Calderón, to the Spanish audience, describes Wladislav Sigismund Vasa visit to Breda's siege and Queen Christina's convertion to the Catholic faith. The political and ideological debate of laws ruling the succession in Catholic and Protestant kingdoms are considered when discussing Diego de Saavedra y Fajardo's (from Catholic Spain) and Schering Rosenhane's (from Lutheran Sweden) political reflections on the issue; this is also compared to the ideological foundations of Calderon's play El gran teatro del mundo. Both King Sigismund Vasa's personal struggle to retain the Swedish crown and Queen Christina's abdication, are considered in the light of Calderon's La protestación de la fe and Rosenhane's political vision in his Hortus Regius. A special investigation is dedicated to the striking contrasts between the original emblems of Hortus Regius and those found today in Rosenhane's palace, having been painted there on the initiative of Rosenhane himself. The Catholic agitation against Machiavelli's definition of "virtue" and the Machiavellian and Catholic interpretation of "reason of state", are related to Calderon's theatre with the intention of evaluating the geopolitical aspects of Calderon's most famous play, La vida es sueño, and also with the purpose to initiate a discussion about the theatrical nature of political behaviour. The dissertation concludes by studying and comparing Calderon's, Bernardino de Rebolledo's (Spanish ambassador to Denmark at the time) and Francisco Bances Candamo's views on Queen Christina's personal aversion to marriage, with special attention paid to the symbolic dimensions of Queen Christina's Amaranta Order.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:su-81389 |
| Date | January 1999 |
| Creators | Vasquez-Lopera, Julian |
| Publisher | Stockholms universitet, Institutionen för litteraturvetenskap och idéhistoria, Stockholm : Almqvist & Wiksell International |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Spanish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Doctoral thesis, monograph, info:eu-repo/semantics/doctoralThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | Stockholm studies in history of literature, 0491-0869 ; 39 |
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