This life-sized or perhaps slightly smaller than life-sized sculpture depicts Calderon de la Barca with long hair, a mustache and goatee. He stands wearing a long cape while holding a large book to his waist with his right hand. It set atop a 3 foot plinth in a little nook of the National Theatre- not far from the entrance. It wuld appear to be made of marble. Unfortunately there is no sign at the site indicating the artist or date.
Wikipedia (
visit link) informs us:
"Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño, usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca (17 January 1600 – 25 May 1681), was a dramatist, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest. Born when the Spanish Golden Age theatre was being defined by Lope de Vega, he developed it further, his work being regarded as the culmination of the Spanish Baroque theatre. As such, he is regarded as one of Spain's foremost dramatists and one of the finest playwrights of world literature...
English
Further information: List of Calderón's plays in English translation
Although not well known to the current English speaking world, Calderón's plays were first adapted into English during the 17th century. For instance, Samuel Pepys recorded attending to some plays during 1667 which were free translations of some of Calderón's. Percy Bysshe Shelley translated a substantial portion of El Mágico prodigioso. Some of Calderón's works have been translated into English, notably by Denis Florence MacCarthy, Edward Fitzgerald, Roy Campbell, Edwin Honig, Kenneth Muir & Ann L. Mackenzie, Adrian Mitchell, and Gwynne Edwards.
Selected plays
Amor, honor y poder (Love, Honor and Power) (1623)
El sitio de Breda (The Siege of Breda) (1625)
La vida es sueño (Life is a dream)
Menu0:00.Calderon dela Barca, Life is a dream, act II, scene 19, Monologue of Segismundo
La dama duende (The Phantom Lady) (1629)
Casa con dos puertas (The House with Two Doors) (1629)
La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream) (1629–1635)
El mayor encanto, amor (Love, the Greatest Enchantment) (1635)
Los tres mayores prodigios (The Three Greatest Wonders) (1636)
La devoción de la Cruz (Devotion to the Cross) (1637)
El mágico prodigioso (The Mighty Magician) (1637)
El médico de su honra (The Surgeon of his Honor) (1637)
El pintor de su deshonra (The Painter of His Dishonor) (1640s)
El alcalde de Zalamea (The Mayor of Zalamea) (1651)
Eco y Narciso (Eco and Narcissus) (1661)
La estatua de Prometeo (Prometheus' Statue)
El prodigio de Alemania (The Prodigy of Germany) (in collaboration with Antonio Coello)
Autos Sacramentales (Sacramental plays)[edit]La cena del rey Baltazar (The Banquet of King Balthazar)
El gran teatro del mundo (The Great Theater of the World)
El gran mercado del mundo (The World is a Fair)
In modern literature[edit]Calderón de la Barca appears in the 1998 novel The Sun Over Breda by Arturo Perez-Reverte, which takes up the assumption that he served in the Spanish Army at Flanders and depicts him during the sack of Oudkerk by Spanish troops, helping the local librarian save books from the library in the burning Town Hall. Latin American author Giannina Braschi based her dramatic novel "United States of Banana" (2011) on Calderón de la Barca's La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream), recasting the tragic hero Segismundo in 21st century New York City, where his father the King of the United States of Banana locks him in dungeon of the Statue of Liberty for the crime of having been born."