Cultural Depictions of Philip II of Spain - Theater

Theater

  • Philip's marriage to his third wife Elisabeth of Valois and problems with his first son Carlos, Prince of Asturias, may be alluded to in Lope de Vega's 1631 drama Castigo sin venganza (Punishment without Revenge). In the view of the play's translator and editor Gwynne Edwards: "The relationship in the play between Casandra, the Duke's wife, and his son Federico was not unlike that between Prince Carlos, son of Philip II, and Isabel who became Philip's wife and Carlos's stepmother"; Edwards argues that these events were recent enough to have embarrassed the court of Philip IV and may have been a reason for the play's withdrawal after one performance.
  • Philip II is a central character in Friedrich Schiller's 1787 play Don Carlos. Schiller drew his material from the 17th-century novel Dom Carlos by Abbé César Vichard de Saint-Réal The plot follows the relationship between a King Philip obsessed with the Spanish Netherlands and his first son, Prince Carlos.
  • The English Poet Laureate John Masefield wrote a verse play, Philip the King, about Philip receiving news of the defeat of the Armada. It was featured as part of a collection of poems called Philip the King and Other Poems (1916).

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