Three Power Plays for the Duke of Lerma by Luis Vélez de Guevara

Abstract

For nearly fifty years critics and historians have explored the relationships that existed between the royal and aristocratic classes and the arts as instruments of power. The present study proposes to extend this line of enquiry by showing how the performances of El alba y el sol (1613), El Conde don Pero Vélez y don Sancho el Deseado (1615), and El Caballero del Sol (1617) intersected with the career, forwarded the interests, and reflected the aesthetic tastes of the Duke of Lerma (circa 1553–1625). In each instance the author was Luis Vélez de Guevara (1579–1644), who for generations has been regarded as a secondary playwright of Spain’s Golden Age. This study draws heretofore unrecognized links to Luis de Góngora and Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and implicitly suggests the need for a critical re-evaluation of Vélez de Guevara’s place in the history of literature.