Calderón de la Barca, reader of Chronicles of the Indies: The myth about the origin of the Incas in The Dawn at Copacabana

Abstract

La aurora en Copacabana is the only play about the New World written by Pedro Calderón de la Barca in which he represented the history of the discovery, conquest, and evangelization of Peru. As sources for his composition, the playwright used the second part of the Comentarios reales of the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and the Historia del Santuario de Nuestra Señora de Copacabana of the Augustinian friar Alonso Ramos Gavilán. Starting from the circumstances of the play’s composition, this article analyzes Calderón’s dramatization of the Incan origin myth.