Throughout this Companion a number of different generic terms have been used to describe, in a kind of short-hand, some of the main kinds of play that have been discussed: comedia de santos, comedia urbana, drama de honor, tragedy, are a few examples. They have often been employed reluctantly or somewhat tentatively as they were either coined well after the era in which they appeared or were used somewhat imprecisely in the Golden Age itself. On balance their use has been taken to be helpful in breaking down an author's oeuvre into constituent parts. However, it is worth remembering that what we regard as theatre, that is (broadly defined) public or private staged performances of imaginative works written to edify and/or entertain, attracted a host of different generic names in Spain from Encina's time until the end of the seventeenth century. Most of these denominations – including farsa, égloga, auto, comedia and representación – are borrowed from older traditions and re-applied rather haphazardly, especially before the end of the sixteenth century, to new forms of dramatic expression. They mean different things in different contexts or to different artists and are initially confusing.

The critical urge to classify, to divide plays into precise types and then subgenres, like that of the scientist approaching the natural world, is a fairly modern one, and is understandable, even imperative to some minds, given the mass of material to be processed and examined. Taxonomy was of limited interest to those writing drama, and, one suspects, those going to see it in the period: the classically-inspired Torres Naharro at the start of the sixteenth century and Bances Candamo at the end of the seventeenth stand out as would-be dramatic theorists. Others such as Cervantes and López Pinciano tend to discuss genre within its basic classical divisions of tragedy and comedy. The latter discusses tragicomedy too, not in anticipation of the Lopean comedia nueva, but using the classic case of Plautus's Amphitruo.

This chapter will begin by raising some of the issues taxonomy entails and discussing briefly a number of terms used by playwrights and scholars to describe Golden Age plays once the comedia nueva had become dominant.