Calderón and the Censorship

Abstract

The work considers the different aspects that censorship proposes in the dramatic work, and life, of Calderón: from the one that was exerted on himself, and that must have guided some of his frequent processes of rewriting or even some repudiations, to the official censorship that his works received in order to be represented. The doctrinal and moral reasons are behind most of the localized cases, but there are also those imposed by politics, and even by complaints from individuals. Likewise, a view of the approvals of the Calderonian volumes is offered, where the censorship gives way to an increasing exaltation of the playwright, until being proposed as a weapon against the enemies of the theater. Last section completes the panorama with attention to his performance as a censor.