MORETO Y CAVANA (CABAÑA), AGUSTÍN. - Spanish dramatist of Italian origin, born in Madrid on 9 April 1618, died there between 26 and 27 October 1669.
He was court poet to Filippo IV, became a priest in 1654, and chaplain to the cardinal of Toledo Baltasar de Moscoso from 1657. He wrote about fifty comedies: on biblical subjects (La cena del rey Baltasar) or hagiographical subjects (El más ilustre francés s. Bernardo; Los siete dormientes; La vida de s. Alejo; S. Franco de Sena); historical (El valente justiciero y rico hombre de Alcalá); and comedies of manners (El desdén con el desdén; El lindo don Diego).
An epigone of Lope and Calderón, he is sometimes closer to us than either of them in the modernity of his sensibility; yet in his theatre there is technical skill, a sense of rare restraint, graceful comedy at times tinged with melancholy, moral interest, and constant introspection, conveyed through dialogue that is swift and spontaneous, like his language and his verse, which faithfully marks the inner rhythm. He has been called “the Spanish Plautus.”