Metateatro y humor en el Retablo de las maravillas

The Retablo de las maravillas is one of the most complex dramatic works of Cervantes, and also one of the most studied. Criticism has dealt with it from different approaches: sociological, psychological, aesthetic, structural. Specifically, the analysis of the metatheatrical elements that it contains has given rise to some of the more compelling interpretations. However, even though comedy may be seen as an element to transmit, disguising them, Cervantes' criticisms of social, economic and ideological superstructures of his time, we must not forget that humor and laughter were the main purposes of the genre in which this piéce is inscribed by its own right.