Shows how the dramas of Lope de Vega, Juan Ruiz de Alarcon, Pedro Calderon de la Barca, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz confronted the economic, legal, socio-political, and religious problems of Spain and its colonies. It studies how drama, a reciprocal transatlantic phenomenon, interacted with Spanish imperial ideology as it attempted to foster the creation of a national identity.