The Two Lovers of Heaven

The Two Lovers of Heaven, originally Los Dos Amantes del Cielo, is a religious play by Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681), the major Spanish Golden Age dramatist. The play belongs to Calderón’s substantial body of religious drama that developed alongside his secular plays across his long career as a Catholic playwright in the Habsburg Spanish court of Philip IV.

The two lovers of the title are Christian martyrs whose love for each other and for Christ produces the dramatic conflict that the play works through. Calderón’s religious plays were performed regularly in Spanish religious festivals across the seventeenth century and contributed to the substantial tradition of Catholic devotional drama that the Spanish Golden Age produced alongside the more famous secular plays of Calderón and Lope de Vega.

For readers interested in seventeenth century Spanish religious drama, Calderón’s religious plays are essential. They pair with his more famous secular plays including Life Is a Dream and with the broader Spanish Golden Age dramatic literature.