Mechanisms of Secrets and Secrecy in «El secretario confuso» by Jacinto Cordeiro

This article studies the mechanism of secrets and secrecy in <em>El secretario confuso</em> (1634), comedy by Jacinto Cordeiro; he is a playwright that belongs to the group of lusitan authors that write in Spanish during the Dual Monarchy period (1580-1640). This work, that can be included in the secretario subtype of comedia palatina genre —based on the infatuation between a noble lady and her secretary— shows thematic and structural coincidences with the main comedies of this moda­lity —<em>El perro del hortelano</em> by Lope de Vega and <em>El vergonzoso en palacio</em> by Tirso de Molina—, but providing new variations to this corpus focussed on the communicational dynamics of remaining silent, concealing and declaring love between the different characters