Log24

Dialogue with Google Search today . . .

In what, if any, Spanish play does a knight exclaim "I'm off to the thirty years war!"?

No known Spanish Golden Age play features a knight shouting anachronistic or direct modern exclamations like "I'm off to the Thirty Years' War!"

While Spanish playwrights of the 17th century—such as Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Antonio Coello—wrote political dramas connected to the era (like El prodigio de Alemania, which deals with the conflicts in Germany), historical characters in contemporary Spanish theater did not refer to the ongoing contemporary struggle with the modern historiographical label "Thirty Years' War" in such a colloquial or exclamatory fashion. 

If you remember the context, author, or approximate source where you encountered this line, please share it so I can track down the exact reference or a potential modern adaptation!

I encountered this reference in . . . https://www.nytimes.com/1986/03/23/books/when-don-quixote-left-his-village-the-modern-world-began.html.

The reference to a knight proclaiming he is off to the "Thirty Years' War" in a Spanish play is a deliberate anachronistic joke cited by Carlos Fuentes in his 1986 essay to illustrate a philosophical point about historical labeling. While the play itself does not exist, the historical paradox was later used as the title for a 1980 sketch revue by The Second City. Read the full essay at The New York Times.