Calderon de la Barca, Pedro

The biography of the playwright, compared with the life of other classics of the Golden Age , Cervantes and Lope de Vega , is relatively poor in external events and evidence.

Calderon was born in Madrid in the family of Don Diego Calderon, Secretary of the Treasury, a middle-class nobleman. The mother of the future playwright Anna Maria de Henao was the daughter of a gunsmith originally from Flanders . Father prepared Calderon for a spiritual career: he was educated at the Jesuit College of Madrid, and also studied at the universities of Salamanca and Alcalá de Henares . However, in 1620, Calderon left school for military service.

According to some reports, in 1625 - 1635 Calderon served in the Spanish troops in Italy and Flanders, but there is evidence of his stay in Madrid during this period. As the playwright Calderon made his debut with the play “Love, Honor and Power” ( Amor, honor y poder , 1623 ) and by the time of the death of his great predecessor and teacher, Lope de Vega , who followed in 1635, was already considered the first playwright of Spain. In addition, he received recognition at court. Philip IV knighted Calderon to the Order of St. Jacob (Santiago) and ordered him plays for the court theater, which was arranged in the newly built Buen Retiro Palace. Calderon was provided with the services of the best musicians and set designers at that time. In plays written by Calderon when he was a court playwright, the use of complex stage effects is noticeable. For example, the play “The Beast, Lightning and Stone” ( La fiera, el rayo y la piedra , 1652 ) was presented on an island in the middle of a lake in a palace park, and the audience watched it while sitting in boats.

In 1640 - 1642 , while performing military duties, Calderon, as part of the cuirassier company, formed by Count Duke Olivares , participated in the suppression of the " Rebel Reapers " (national separatist movement) in Catalonia . In 1642, due to health reasons, he left military service and three years later he was awarded a pension. Later he became the tertiary of the Order of St. Francis , and in 1651 Calderon was ordained a priest; this was probably caused by events in his personal life (the death of his brother, the birth of an illegitimate son), about which little reliable information was preserved, as well as the persecution of the theater that began.

After the ordination, Calderon refused to compose secular plays and turned to autos sacramentales - allegorical plays for plots borrowed mainly from the Bible and Holy Tradition , which dramatically illustrate the sacrament of the Eucharist . In 1663, he was appointed personal confessor of Philip IV (royal chaplain ); this honorable post was retained by Calderon and the king’s successor, Charles II . Despite the popularity of the plays and the favor of the royal court, the last years of Calderon passed in marked poverty.

Calderon died 15 ( May 25, 1681 ).

Calderón’s dramaturgy is the Baroque completion of the theater model created in the late 16th – early 17th centuries by Lope de Vega . According to the list of works compiled by the author himself shortly before his death, Calderon wrote about 120 comedies (including “cloaks and swords” ) and dramas , 80 autos sacramentales , 20 interludes and a considerable number of other works, including poems and poems. Although Calderón is less prolific than his predecessor, he perfects the dramatic “formula” created by Lope de Vega, cleansing it of the lyrical and low-functional elements and turning the play into a magnificent baroque action. For him, unlike Lope de Vega, characterized by special attention to the scenographic and musical side of the performance.

There are many classifications of plays by Calderon. Most often, researchers distinguish the following groups:

• Dramas of honor. These works are dominated by the traditional problems of the Spanish Baroque: love , religion and honor . The conflict is associated either with a departure from these principles, or with the tragic need to comply with them, even at the cost of human life. Although the action often takes place in the past of Spain, the situation and problems are close to modern Calderon. Examples: “The Steadfast Prince ”, “Salamean Alcald”, “Doctor of His Honor”, ​​“Painter of His Shame”.

• Philosophical dramas. Plays of this type touch upon the fundamental questions of being, first of all, human destiny, free will , and the causes of human suffering. The action takes place most often in countries “exotic” for Spain (for example, Ireland , Poland , Russia ); historical and local color is emphasized conditionally and is intended to emphasize their timeless problems. Examples: “ Life is a dream ”, “Magic Mage”, “Purgatory of St. Patrick ”.

• Comedy of intrigue. The most “traditional” group of Calderon’s plays includes comedies based on the canons of the Lope de Vega theater, with an intricate and fascinating love affair . The initiators and the most active participants in the intrigue are most often women. Comedies are characterized by the so-called “calderon move” - objects that accidentally hit the heroes, letters that came by mistake, secret passages and hidden doors. Examples: “ The Invisible Lady ”, “In the Pool ...”, “Aloud in Secret”.

Regardless of the genre , Calderon's style is characterized by increased metaphor , a vividly poetic language, logically built dialogues and monologues, which reveal the character of the characters. Calderon’s works are rich in reminiscences from ancient mythology and literature, Holy Scripture , and other writers of the Golden Age (for example, allusions to the characters and situations of Don Quixote are in the texts of Ghost Ladies and Salamean Alcald). The characters of his plays simultaneously possess one dominant feature (Cyprian (The Magic Magician) - a thirst for knowledge, Sehismundo ("Life is a dream") - the inability to distinguish between good and evil, Pedro Crespo ("Salamean Alcald") - the pursuit of justice) and complex internal device.

The last significant playwright of the Golden Age, Calderon, after a period of oblivion in the 18th century , was rediscovered in Germany . Goethe staged his plays at the Weimar Theater; noticeable influence of the “Magic Mage” on the plan of “Faust” . Thanks to the works of the Schlegel brothers, who were especially attracted to the philosophical and religious component of his works (“Calderon is Catholic Shakespeare”), the Spanish playwright gained wide popularity and firmly took his place as a classic of European literature. The influence of Calderon on German-language literature in the 20th century was reflected in the work of Hugo von Hoffmannsthal .

Among the European romantics who were influenced by Calderon or translated his works, one can also mention Percy Bysshe Shelley , Juliusz Slovacki , Wilhelm Küchelbeker .

• The Steadfast Prince ( El príncipe constante , drama of honor, 1629 )
• The Invisible Lady (The Ghost Lady) ( La dama duende , comedy, 1629 )
• “Adoration of the Cross” ( La devoción de la Cruz , philosophical drama, 1634 )
• “ Life is a dream ” ( La vida es sueño , philosophical drama, 1635 )
• “Doctor of His Honor” ( El médico de su honra , drama of honor, 1635 )
• The Magic Magician ( El mágico prodigioso , philosophical drama, 1635 )
• The Purgatory of St. Patrick ( El purgatorio de San Patricio , philosophical drama, 1643 )
• “The Salamean Alcalde” (“The Alcade in Zalamea”) ( El alcalde de Zalamea , drama of honor, c. 1645 )
• The Great Theater of the World ( El gran teatro del mundo , auto, 1649 )
• "In the pool ..." ( Guárdate del agua mansa , comedy, 1649 )

The first experience in translating Calderon’s works into Russian belongs to Catherine II , who was fond of the theater, who made a “free arrangement” of the first seven scenes of the comedy “Hidden Caballero” ( El escondido y la tapada ). In the XIX century, through the mediation of German romantics , Calderon gradually gained fame in Russia . Judgments about his work are found in Pushkin , Belinsky , Nadezhdin , Bulgarin , Turgenev . Translations of Calderon’s plays appear, including those made from the original language (for example, “Life is a Dream” and “Salamean Alcald” translated by K. I. Timkovsky). In the second half of the century, the production of Calderon’s works on the Russian stage begins.

The real discovery of Calderon for Russian culture was the translations of K. D. Balmont , which have still not lost their significance (they came out in three issues in 1900 , 1902 and 1912 ; reprinted, with the addition of unpublished translations found in the archive, in 1989 in the series “ Literary Monuments "). Some of the plays translated by Balmont (“Adoration of the Cross,” “The Stable Prince”, “Life is a Dream”) were staged by V. E. Meyerhold and A. Ya. Tairov .

In the USSR, the work of Calderon until about the 1980s was attacked for "reactionary", "mysticism", "service to the church and absolutism ." The comedies of the Spanish playwright were published and staged mainly. So, in 1946, a translation of the comedy “The Ghost Lady” appeared, made by T. I. Shchepkina-Kupernik . This play was performed on the Soviet stage dozens of times, especially in provincial theaters.

The two-volume Calderon, published in 1961 , became a kind of frontier in the perception of his work in the USSR. In the preface of N. Tomashevsky, an attempt was made to "rehabilitate" Calderon, declaring him "the last great poet of the Spanish Renaissance." Four plays were first published in Russian; in addition, as part of the collection, the translation of “The Stable Prince”, created in the last years of the poet’s life, was published by B. L. Pasternak .

In the 1970s and 1980s , research appeared by N. I. Balashov , S. I. Eremin (Piskunova) , M. Yu. Oganisyan, overcoming the view of Calderon as a purely “reactionary” writer that prevailed in Soviet literary criticism for a long time.

In the post-Soviet era, the autos The Great Theater of the World (S. F. Goncharenko, 1998–99 ) and the comedy Silence-Gold (N. Yu. Vanhanen, 2001 ) were translated.

• Works of Calderon. Translation from Spanish by K. D. Balmont. Vol. 1-3. M., 1900, 1902, 1912.
• Plays. In 2 vols. M., 1961.
• Dramas. In 2 books. M., 1989.

• Iberica. Calderon and world culture. L., 1986.
• Balashov N.I. Spanish classical drama in the comparative literary and textological aspects. M., 1975.
• Balashov N.I. Religious and philosophical drama of Calderon and the ideological foundations of baroque in Spain // XVII century in world literary development. M., 1969.
• Ignatiev (Oganisyan) M.Yu. Agony of the Christian world: from John Cross to Calderon. Latin America, 2018, No. 2 .
• Oganisyan M.Yu. The problem of the genre and the tragic in the theater of the XVII century (Calderon and Racine) // Philological Sciences, No. 5, 1990.
• Pedro Calderon de la Barca. Bibliography / Comp. V.G. Ginko. M., 2006.
• Silyunas V. Lifestyle and styles of art (Spanish Theater of Mannerism and Baroque). SPb., 2000.

• Calderon on lib.ru
• An article on Calderon in the Literary Encyclopedia
• An article about Calderon in the encyclopedia "Around the World"
• Original Calderon Texts in Spanish Wikisource (Spanish)
• Calderon on the website of the library of M. Cervantes (Spanish)
• Anthology and anthology of Spanish poetry (letra C)
• Lukov Vl. A. Calderon Pedro, a Spanish contemporary of Shakespeare (neopr.) . Information and research database "Shakespeare's Contemporaries" (2012). Date of treatment October 25, 2012. Archived October 25, 2012.