Calderón: The Imagery of Tragedy

Can there be a «true» Spanish tragedy? The discussion of this question and its controversial affirmative answer form the basis of Calderón: The Imagery of tragedy. In her revaluation of the concept of tragedy in Calderonian drama, Professor Suscavage has insisted that the plays themselves be viewed, not as artifacts nor historical, philosophical or religious period-pieces, but as living structures of imagery. By means of an intrinsic analysis of eight plays, the author defends the proposition that the «tragic» cannot be pigeonholed into one definition or one cultural heritage, and asserts that Spanish Golden Age dramatists did indeed create works as valid as any other in the accepted «tragic» canon.