Life Is a Dream, a masterpiece by Pedro Calderón de la Barca

Life Is a Dream (La vida es sueño) is one of Calderón’s most famous plays, probably written around the same time as The Surgeon of Honour (El médico de su honra). I read the translation by Gwynne Edwards. 

1/ The play begins with Rosaura, dressed as a man (17th century writers seem to like cross-dressers), wandering in Poland and coming across Segismundo (very Polish name), who is imprisoned and chained. 

This is an interesting passage: 

“SEGISMUNDO […] and since my birth,

If this can be considered birth, 

Have spent my worthless life in this

Deserted place, this wilderness, 

A skeleton that still has flesh, 

A corpse that still lays claim to breath. 

I have seen no one in this time, 

Nor spoken to a single soul

Save one who knows my sorrows and

Has taught me all I know about

Both heaven and earth…” 

(Act 1)

I can see why Gwynne Edwards says Calderón’s plays are considered intellectual. Life Is a Dream has an interesting premise: Basilio, the King of Poland can communicate with the stars and gets the prophecy that his son Segismundo would become a Stalin.

“BASILIO […] The first concerns my love for you, 

My people, and my wish to spare

You from a King who, as the prophecy 

Declared, would be a ruthless tyrant. 

What sort of King would you consider 

Me if I had chosen to ignore 

The risk and so expose my people 

To the tyranny of someone else?...” 

(Act 2) 

His choice is “to exercise my tyranny on him” or let the whole country suffer his tyranny. 

Utilitarianism or deontology. 

Here’s some striking image: 

“BASILIO […] And then there came a great

Eclipse, the mightiest the world

Has ever seen since on that fearful 

Day the sun wept with its blood for

Our Lord. So now, as then, the world 

Was suddenly engulfed by fire, 

And everyone was soon convinced 

The end of life itself was near. 

The heavens grew black, the buildings shook, 

The skies rained stones, the rivers ran

With blood, and in the midst of this 

Confusion of the sun my son

Was born, and gave a clear warning 

Of his own condition by murdering

His mother at the very moment

Of his birth…” 

(ibid.) 

Striking imagery. I wonder what Calderón’s poetry is like in the original.

Having imprisoned his son for years, Basilio one day thinks “What if the prophecy was wrong?”, so he confesses it all to his people and declares that he’s going to make Segismundo a king—if Segismundo proves to be a violent king, back to the cave he goes—then Basilio is going to tell him that everything was a dream.

The experiment is to see if “man is master of destiny”, if Segismundo is able “to overcome the stars”. 

Not very smart, is he? Does he not consider that the imprisonment, cruelty, and injustice would make Segismundo a hateful tyrant? The attempt to avoid the prophecy inadvertently fulfils it. Like Oedipus. 

The play raises questions about utilitarianism vs deontology, fate vs free will, nature vs nurture, and so on. 

2/ Another theme, as you can see from the title, is the idea of life as a dream. 

“SEGISMUNDO […] That all our life is but a dream, 

And what I’ve seen so far tells me 

That any man who lives dreams what 

He is until at last he wakes. 

The King dreams he is king and so 

Believing rules, administers, 

Rejoices in the exercise of power; 

He does not seem to know his fame

Is written on the wind and death 

Will turn to ashes all his splendour. 

[…] What is this life? A fantasy? 

A prize we seek so eagerly 

That proves so illusory? 

I think that life is but a dream, 

And even dreams not what they seem.” 

(Act 2) 

This is very good. I can see why Tom (Wuthering Expectations) wrote “Metaphysically, Life Is a Dream rivals Shakespeare.”

Tom also notes the brilliant idea of Calderón to have Segismundo believe that the vivid episode was a dream. 

“SEGISMUNDO […] Great heavens, must I be made to dream 

Of greatness, once again when I 

Already know that time will prove 

To me its emptiness? 

Must I be made to realize 

Once more that pomp and majesty, 

Like shadows scattered by the wind 

Are mere vanity?...” 

(Act 3) 

The entire speech is magnificent—I give you just a few lines just so you get the idea—I wish I knew Spanish so I could read it in the original! 

3/ I’m not fond of the subplot. So far I have read only 5 things from the Spanish Golden Age and the figure of the jilted woman has popped up several times—2 (at least) in Don Quixote (Dorotea and the daughter of Doña Rodriguez), 1 in Lope de Vega (Marcela in The Dog in the Manger), 1 in The Surgeon of Honour (Leonor), and now 2 in Life is a Dream (Rosaura and Violante)!  

(What’s up with Spanish men, at least in the 17th century?) 

4/ I will not tell you how it ends—you should read or watch the play for yourself. It is a strange, fascinating play.  

I will only say that I can see why Lope de Vega was considered “monstruo de naturaleza” (Monster of Nature) and Calderón was “monstruo del ingenio” (Monster of Intellect). Compared to Lope de Vega’s characters, the characters in Life Is a Dream are not very vivid and lifelike—they also feel less “real” than the ones in The Surgeon of Honour. That’s an observation rather than a complaint. Life Is a Dream is more like an allegory and deals with lots of interesting ideas, and there are wonderful speeches—operatic, to use Gwynne Edwards’s word—even if I could only read them in translation. 

Gwynne Edwards also has a point when she praises the character of Segismundo: 

“Much of [the fascination and appeal] lies in the sheer emotional ferocity and unpredictability of this man-beast dressed in animal skins, as likely to tear Rosaura to pieces as he is to be moved to open-mouthed astonishment by her dazzling beauty. But it seems too from his bewilderment at the sudden and extreme changes in his fortunes and status […] and his uncertainty as to which is real, which false. The scale and range of his mental and emotional conflict and the slow advance towards a greater understanding of himself and of the world offer limitless possibilities to an actor.” 

I would love to see this performed.