Pedro Calderon de la Barca

El prodigio de Alemania Pedro Calderon de la Barca Spanish edition

El prodigio de Alemania (1634), a Spanish Golden Age comedy written by Calderon de la Barca in collaboration with Antonio Coello, depicts the dramatic story of general Albrecht von Wallenstein during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The death of king Adolf Gustav of Sweden, during the Lützen battle (1632) against the imperial army led by Wallenstein, marks the start of a story that takes place within a dark conspiracy plot in the Spain of king Felipe IV and the Count-Duque of Olivares. The authors build a play with characters who all have historical references, thus displaying before the reader's eyes both the context and the events that marked the end of Wallenstein's life. This edition includes an extensive foreword and footnotes that, besides analyzing the play in detail, place the action in the precise historical moment in which it was written, thus facilitating the full comprehension of the story. This volume constitutes the first edition of El prodigio de Alemania after the original XVII Century unbound folios were found, less than ten years ago, in Madrid's National Library. The main value of this play is to delve deeper into the Calderonian studies and understand how the Spanish theatre of that period was used as political propaganda by the ruling regime.