Philosophy and Sanctity: The Dialogue with Stoicism in El Príncipe Constant

Abstract

In El príncipe constante Calderón manages to integrate several questions widely debated by influential masters of ancient Stoicism: the confrontation between fear and hope, the moral and political dimensions of clemency, the contrast tween literal and spiritual slavery, the need to adjust both thought and behavior to the cosmic order prevailing in Nature—among other topics which show Calderón’s familiarity with central doctrines of Stoic philosophy. The comedy explores the validity, and in some significant cases the limitations, of the answers elicited by these questions within a culture in which the Stoic ideals of constancy and inner strength against adversity have incorporated  religious and militant overtones. In such context, Christian martyrdom has become the highest expression of human virtue; but martyrdom also entails wrath and violence, thus indefinitely postponing the fulfillment of concord, mutual understanding, and other social values also examined in Calderón’s text