The Marriage of Art and Honor: Anamorphosis and Control in Calderón's La dama duende

Anamorphosis, broadly speaking, refers to visual tricks and conceits that arise with the invention and development of Renaissance single point perspective. The plays of Calderón de la Barca not only make generous use of visually anamorphic strategies to simultaneously illuminate and hide the progress of their intriguing plots, the language of painting and baroque theories of representation are important structural and narrative elements in his dramatic practice. This study examines Calderón's use of anamorphosis in his drama of intrigue La dama duende, concluding that the playwright dramatizes the relationship between art and the human faculties of the imagination and judgment in order to circumscribe the production of marvelous artistic spectacles within the social and political arena of honor. (BJN)