Agustín Moreto

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Agustín Moreto y Cabaña (1618 – October 28, 1669) was a dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age. He was born in Madrid in 1618, of Italian descent. Young Agustín attended the University of Alcalá de Henares between 1634 and 1637, studying logic and physics and receiving his Licentiate in 1639. By 1643, he had been ordained a cleric in minor orders, with a benefice, and had also in all probability begun his dramatic writing. By the middle of the century he was already a recognized literary figure and a member of the Academia Castellana. He published the first volume of his comedies (called the Primera Parte) in 1654; El desdén, con el desdén (literally “Disdain with Disdain”), one of his most popular and famous comedies, first appeared in print in this edition. Sometime after 1657, Agustín was ordained a priest, at which time he seems to have cut back on, but not altogether ceased, his dramatic activity. He became a protege and chaplain of the Archbishop of Toledo, and at his request, entered the Brotherhood of San Pedro in 1659 in order to help administer the Hospital of San Nicolás. He lived on the Hospital grounds until his death ten years later in October of 1669, of an illness that left his final work, a play about St. Rose of Lima, unfinished. He was buried in the Church of St. John the Baptist in Toledo. He is probably the finest of the second generation of Golden Age playwrights--especially for comedy.