Basta callar

Pedro Calderon de la Barca’s Basta callar has been little studied until recently because it had been published only in a severely abridged text. This complete edition, based on a partly-autograph manuscript in the Biblioteca Nacional, seeks to remedy that critical silence. Basta callar offers delightful comic play around the workings of an elegant pocket watch, comedy that leads to a serious question as well: conflicting concepts of time in court society. Professor Greer’s introduction analyzes that conflict, as well as the relation of the play’s hunting scenes to noble subjectivity and the political implications of its setting on the French border. She argues that the play might best be classified as a “comedy of frustration” for its palace audience.
Margaret Rich Greer is Associate Professor of Spanish at Duke University. She has also taught at Princeton, New York University and Yale University. Her published books include: The Play of Power: Mythological Court Dramas of Calderón de la Barca: María de Zayas Tells Baroque Tales of Love and the Cruelty of Men; and an edition of Calderon’s La estatua de Prometeo. She has written extensively on problems of comedia editing.