Authorship and Aesthetic Experience in the Comedia: The Genesis of Calderón’s A secreto agravio, secreta venganza

Abstract: A secreto agravio was Calderón’s own creation, but as with his other plays, he had little if any role in its publication. Like other comedia playwrights, he composed his works for live performance rather than to be read as texts. The genealogy of A secreto agravio helps show how the role of a comedia playwright differed from today’s notion of an author who has exclusive ownership of their work. While details of the plot compare to those of two earlier works in particular, Lope’s novella, La más prudente venganza, and Tirso’s comedia, El celoso prudente, all three employ motifs dating back to the novellas of twelfth-century France and Italy. Working within the medieval convention of the exemplum, Calderón selected material for A secreto agravio from a long-standing literary and oral tradition, to appeal to a common patrimony of “wisdom” about human behavior. The goal was to move spectators toward a more complete understanding of the truth they should already know. In this design, rather than creator, the playwright’s role was more that of mediator or guide. At the same time, Calderón’s use of dramatic irony and distance to achieve this goal looks forward to a modern concept of authorship.