Customer Reviews

Life Is a Dream (Penguin Classics)

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This immortal play is an allegory: a tale which illustrates us on some superior truth, employing symbols. Basil is the king of Poland, who hides his son Sigmund (Freud?, just kidding)in a tower, for fear that an oracle may come true. Once, he takes him out to see what kind of man he is, and discovers Sigmund is arrogant and authoritarian. Then he puts him back in his cell and manages to convince him that everything was just a dream. After that, civil war begins, and Sigmund is out to fight, a totally different man from what he was.

"Life is a dream" is a play about the utter unreliability of our senses. Of course, we have to use them to figure out some reality in which we can live. But we have no idea of who we are and where we come from, much less what will happen after death. We also don't know what death is. It is also a case in favor of peace and solidarity. Why spend our brief and dream-like time on Earth being mean and dirty?: let's all be friendly and good, and this will be a good dream and not a nightmare.

Despite its philosophical subject, the play is quick-paced and funny. The plot to make Sigmund believe everything was a dream is hilarious, and it is easy to see why it's a classic. Read it.

Pedro Calderon de la Barca is one of the great playwrights of the Renaissance, and his La Vida es Sueño, or Life is a Dream, is at the top of nearly everyone's list of Calderon's "Greatest Hits." Depicting the revolt of a Polish prince imprisoned by his father because of a prophecy that the boy would one day endanger the realm, this three act play has been translated into English more than a dozen times in the last century alone, but this is the first version I have seen that is not only faithful to the letter of the text but to the form and feeling of the play in the pleasure of the reading moment. In a monumental act of poetic ventriloquy, the translator Gregary Racz has miraculously managed to reproduce the exact rhyme scheme of this "Golden Age" masterpiece in an elegantly metrical English that echoes the original Spanish line for line, all 3319 of them. Vide this snippet from the closing soliloquy of ACT II.

What's life? Not anything it seems.

A shadow. Fiction filling reams.

All we possess on earth means nil,

for life's a dream, think what you will,

and even all our dreams are dreams.

I predict Racz's Life is a Dream will have an immensely long shelf-life and a brilliant career on the Anglo-American stage.

This play is a hidden gem. Calderon has written a classic comedy that follows the formula but ventures into classic philosophy as well: what is our life? Is it real? Is it a dream? If it is a dream, how then should we live our lives? This is the center of Oedipus Rex, with its fate versus free will theme, and Calderon explores it with humor and compassion. The Dover edition is inexpensive but doesn't cut corners, making it perfect for college students. I highly recommend it!

"What is life? An illusion, a shadow, a story, And the greatest good is little enough: for all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams"

To be or not to be maybe is one of the most famous quotation. It is catchy, but " ¿Qué es la vida?/un frenesi/ ¿Qué es la vida?/ una ilusión" is better.

Forget a spoiled prince too obssesed with his mother. Forget a maid who needs a therapy and soon. We have Segismundo and Rosaura. A brave, drop dead gorgeous dark hero and a resourceful, witty, inteligent heroine. You will laugh, you will cry.
You have romance, sword-fighting-cross-star lovers, intrigue, foreign policy. All in one.

Seriously, this is the best play ever written. You can enjoy only the story or find a real interpretation of Spain under the Habsburgs. But also a search for identity. Calderon asks the eternal question WHO ARE WE and wrapped it in a wonderful, rich and manificent dress.
Try it and you forget Dennmark. And if you can read it in Spanish. Maybe is hard but it will worth.