El galán fantasma es una obra de teatro del dramaturgo español Pedro Calderón de la Barca. Pertenece al género de la comedia de capa y espada, que era muy popular en la época del Siglo de Oro español. Este tipo de comedias se caracterizan por sus enredos y equívocos, protagonizados generalmente por personajes de la nobleza menor o emergente, y se ambientan en un contexto urbano contemporáneo. En El galán fantasma, Calderón de la Barca crea un mundo lleno de engaños, persecuciones y relaciones amorosas complicadas. La trama está llena de sorpresas y giros inesperados que mantienen al espectador en constante expectación. Al igual que otras comedias de capa y espada, la obra se centra en la destreza, el honor, la lealtad y los dilemas amorosos de sus personajes. El galán, personaje principal de este tipo de comedias, es en este caso un fantasma, que complica aún más la trama y añade un elemento sobrenatural a la historia. A través de este personaje, Calderón de la Barca explora temas como la apariencia versus la realidad, la vida después de la muerte y el amor incondicional.
Author
Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Henao was a dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age. Calderón initiated what has been called the second cycle of Spanish Golden Age theatre. Whereas his predecessor, Lope de Vega, pioneered the dramatic forms and genres of Spanish Golden Age theatre, Calderón polished and perfected them. Whereas Lope's strength lay in the sponteneity and naturalness of his work, Calderón's strength lay in his capacity for poetic beauty, dramatic structure and philosophical depth. Calderón was a perfectionist who often revisited and reworked his plays, even long after they debuted. This perfectionism was not just limited to his own work: many of his plays rework existing plays or scenes by other dramatists, improving their depth, complexity, and unity. (Many European playwrights of the time, such as Molière, Corneille and Shakespeare, reworked old plays in this way.) Calderón excelled above all others in the genre of the "auto sacramental", in which he showed a seemingly inexhaustible capacity to giving new dramatic forms to a given set of theological constructs. Calderón wrote 120 "comedias", 80 "autos sacramentales" and 20 short comedic works called "entremeses"
