Editor's preface

Summary

In the writing and editing of this book we have acted upon certain suggestions made to us by Mr Michael Black of the Cambridge University Press. These suggestions were made in order that the book could appeal to a wider audience than a specialist one; so that anyone (for example, a student of European literature) with an interest in Calderon but with little or no knowledge of the Spanish language may read the book without being handicapped in any way.

The guidelines are as follows. Articles which were originally in Spanish have been translated into English. A note at the beginning of the relevant chapter notes indicates where this has been done. All quotations from secondary sources other than English ones have been translated without the original but with the reference given so that the reader may go to the source if he wishes. All titles of plays when first mentioned and citations of Calderón himself have been given first in Spanish and then paraphrased in English. The Spanish spelling, for the sake of consistency in the book, has been modernised where necessary; where this has been done, reference has been made to it.

A similar approach has been adopted with regard to the plays themselves and their context, so that people who did not have a chance to acquire this background knowledge should not be at a disadvantage. Therefore, the Introduction deals not only with a biographical outline of Calderón, but also with information about the types of play to be found in seventeenth-century Spain and their staging.