El prodigio de Alemania (1634), a Spanish Golden Age comedy written by Calderon de la Barca in collaboration with Antonio Coello, depicts the dramatic story of general Albrecht von Wallenstein during the Thirty Years War (1618-1648). The death of king Adolf Gustav of Sweden, during the Lutzen battle (1632) against the imperial army led by Wallenstein, marks the start of a story that takes place within a dark conspiracy plot in the Spain of king Felipe IV and the Count-Duque of Olivares. The authors build a play with characters who all have historical references, thus displaying before the...

At the time when Calderon began to compose for the stage, the Spanish drama was at its height. Lope de Vega, the most prolific and, with Calderon, the greatest, of Spanish dramatists, was still alive; and by his applause gave encouragement to the beginner whose fame was to rival his own. The national type of drama which Lope had established was maintained in its essential characteristics by Calderon, and he produced abundant specimens of all its varieties. Of regular plays he has left a hundred and twenty; of "Autos Sacramentales," the peculiar Spanish allegorical development of the medieval...