AN APPROACH TO THE RIDDLES IN CALDERÓN’S PLAYS

Abstract

This article offers a brief introduction to riddles, proposing some definitions of the genre and its significance in Spanish literature of the seventeenth century. Calderón employs riddles/enigmas in different contexts in his plays, such as in literary academies and in the oracular utterances of mythological gods. There are also mysterious characters who present themselves as riddles/enigmas. This is a charac- teristic element of Calderonian drama and it is related to others, like the monster and the labyrinth.