Agustín Moreto

Agustín Moreto (baptized April 9, 1618, Madrid, Spain—died Oct. 26/27, 1669, Toledo) was a Spanish dramatist whose plays were extremely popular in his time and who was considered the equal of his great near-contemporary Lope de Vega. His reputation has steadily diminished over the years, and he is now considered a highly competent but unoriginal writer.

The son of Italian parents, Moreto studied law at the University of Alcalá and then returned to Madrid. He wrote plays with remarkable ease, turning out more than 100 dramas that brought him great popular success. He took minor orders in 1642 and entered a monastery in 1659.

Moreto’s output falls into four groups: religious plays dealing with the lives of saints; historical plays; comedies of intrigue, in which the plot is more important than the characterization; and comedies of character. Gifted with a sense for stagecraft, he made old stories come alive on stage. His masterpiece, El desdén con el desdén (“Contempt with Contempt”), based on parts of four plays of Lope de Vega, is marked, as are all his best plays, by its elegance and faithfulness to real life.