Chapter 4 Calderón and the condemnation of the divinatory arts on the stage

Abstract

Calderón, in a series of dramas of different genres, condemns the divinatory arts from an orthodox stance and shows on the stage how the human being is able, thanks to his free will, to triumph over astral or corporal determinism. The position of the playwright towards astrology is well known, although he approached the question from different stances, in accordance with each dramatic genre. In the early cloak-and-dagger comedy El astrólogo fingido the heavenly science is openly mocked, and the character who pretends to be an astrologer disqualifies himself by declaring himself a disciple of the physiognomist Giovanni Battista Della Porta. Calderón’s concern with this question is evident from his earliest plays onwards; thus, in La devoción de la cruz, the cross-shaped birthmarks of the twins Julia and Eusebio are visible signs of their propensity towards violence. But thanks to their willpower they triumph over physiognomic determinism. The ending of the play equals a refutation of the epistemological basis of physiognomic thinking.