Paperback , pages. More Details Original Title. Other Editions Friend Reviews. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Does this book come in English? My Spanish is not that good. Thank you. Melanie Not a direct answer, but I wanted to warn you that English versions of this are not fantastic. Mostly because it's a play written in verse. There is s …more Not a direct answer, but I wanted to warn you that English versions of this are not fantastic.
There is something to the quality of the rhyme that you will miss with the translation. It's like reading Shakespear in prose. Sure you'll get the gist, but you are missing the thing that made it brilliant. Lists with This Book. Community Reviews. Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Re-read: I haven't changed my opinion the slightest bit. View all 4 comments. What is life? A thing that seems, A mirage that falsely gleams, Phantom joy, delusive rest, Since is life a dream at best, And even dreams themselves are dreams.
View 2 comments. Dec 16, Miquixote rated it really liked it Shelves: spanish , fiction , drama , poetry , 4-greatest-books , plays , b-plus-literary-community , spain , A metaphor for authority and oppression.
Is authority justified in oppressing us because it believes we would bring disaster if empowered? Lying about our weakness authority manages to keep us unaware until it betrays what little it has left of humanity and gives us a degree of freedom. When we experience that freedom, this discovery of our limited freedoms make us violent, and we rage. Horrified and certain of the truthfulness of their fears, authority has us drugged and returned to our prisons. We mourn, believing everything to be nothing more than a spectacle.
Though we remain oblivious in our cells, some have really discovered our plight and would like to break us out of prison the revolutionaries. Though we will probably rejoice if this happens, we cannot be sure whether this new development would be, in fact, reality or still just another spectacle.
The rebels persist, though, and raise an army of the people. Together the rebels defeat the authority, but the people still need their chosen leader. The book naively? The chosen resolves to live by acknowledging that one must strive for goodness in both dream and reality. A book that reveals a need for the archetypal hero who fights for freedom, in this case a quixotic character unsure of what is real and what is not, a romantic appeal to a non-violent revolution freeing us from an over-emphasis on mystification, opening up a new degree of freedom, that of reality.
But allowing us still the freedom that is given by the spirit of the myth, the ideal, the archetype, the unconscious, the immaterial, the imaginatory, the romantic, the spectacle and ultimately art -in all its glory. Goodness in reality and in dream. The creation of a dialectic between dream and reality, between the unconscious and the conscious through the gain of social power. One is only left to wonder if social inclusion will follow from this new leader or will it simply be a new authority?
View 1 comment. May 29, E. I really enjoyed reading this play, the language is so beautiful and flowed so nice it was fun to read and I could follow the storyline quite well. This play is wrote in a way that once you begin reading the text is like an old song and you find its rhyming works very well.
This play was first published in the 's in Spain. The translation I read at Project Gutenberg was published in The introduction by the translator included this information: A note by Hartzenbusch in the last edition of the drama published at Madrid , tells that "La Vida es Sueno", is founded on a story which turns out to be substantially the same as that with which English students are familiar as the foundation of the famous Induction to the "Taming of the Shrew".
Calderon found This play was first published in the 's in Spain. Calderon found it however in a different work from that in which Shakespeare met with it, or rather his predecessor, the anonymous author of "The Taming of a Shrew", whose work supplied to Shakespeare the materials of his own comedy.
It has been added to my Someday list now, though. I will want to read that 'famous Induction' for myself! Meanwhile, back in Spain She and her companion Clarin the requisite clownish servant stumble across the hidden tower where Prince Sigismund has been chained his entire life. They are discovered by the nobleman Clotaldo, who takes them to the castle to turn them over to the King. But there is a lot going on beneath the surface: Clotaldo seems to recognize Rosaura, but why?
Why does the King, who is considered so wise, rely so much on astrology, and what troubles has that caused him and his country?
Why is Prince Sigismund a prisoner in the first place? And the dream? Just where does that come into the plot? Does everyone get their heart's desire by the final curtain? Or is it all just a dream? This was a fun little romp, with some lovely phrases throughout, and a profound message about life and how to live it tossed out bit by bit in the final act. I enjoyed the play, but I would like to read it in the original Spanish someday if possible.
There are some speeches with puns and wordplay in them that would sound much better in Spanish. The translator completely changed a few lines in the last act because he did not like the original puns, which made sense in Spanish but not in English.
This can be a problem with Spanish, especially when it is spoken, because many words can be used in puns. The translator added a footnote explaining what he did and why. Calderon is another new author to me, but I want to explore more of his work. During certain periods of his life he was also a soldier and a Roman Catholic priest. Born when the Spanish Golden Age theatre was being defined by Lope de Vega, he developed it further, his work being regarded as the culmination of the Spanish Baroque theatre.
As such, he is regarded as one of Spain's foremost dramatists and one of the finest playwrights of world literature. Sigismund: In this world's uncertain gleam, That to live is but to dream: Man dreams what he is, and wakes Only when upon him breaks Death's mysterious morning beam. Clotaldo, Who guards my son with old fidelity, Shall bring him hither from his tower by night Lockt in a sleep so fast as by my art I rivet to within a link of death, But yet from death so far, that next day's dawn Shall wake him up upon the royal bed, Complete in consciousness and faculty, When with all princely pomp and retinue My loyal Peers with due obeisance Shall hail him Segismund, the Prince of Poland.
Don't know what to rate this. I was eager to read the FitzGerald translation, but hi I was eager to read the FitzGerald translation, but his version was not particularly enchanting or lyrical, not to speak of literal.
I'm sure the quasi-Shakespearean diction was appropriate to a Spanish Renaissance or early modern play, but in effect, it came off as bookish. Oct 10, Nina rated it it was amazing Shelves: the-myth-of-faust. I'm not usually so much impressed by theatre plays, but this one,this one was very good. I read it with so much curiosity and the plot is really interesting. It was the first Spanish theatre play I've read and I didn't expect it to impress me so much.
New York, Hill and Wang. Allen, John J. Frederick A. De Armas, pp. Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, Bucknell University Press. Cascardi, Anthony J. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. Clifford, John. In Stages of Translation , ed. David Johnston, pp. Bath, Absolute Classics. De Armas, Frederick A. Fischer, Susan L. Woodbridge, Tamesis. Manfred Tietz, pp. Stuttgart, Franz Steiner Verlag in Spanish. Johnston, David. In Stages of Translation , pp. Lauer, A. Laura R. Bass and Margaret R.
Greer, pp. There is an especially useful activity described on p. This could be adapted in a rehearsal context to open up the play. Context Dates. Spain Country of Origin. Allegory Play. Other Resources. Related Articles. T… Please log in to consult the article in its entirety.
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