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IntroductionIntroductory Note
Introductory Note
Pedro Calderon de la Barca was born in Madrid, January 17, 1600, of good
family. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Madrid and at the University
of Salamanca; and a doubtful tradition says that he began to write plays at
the age of thirteen. His literary activity was interrupted for ten years,
1625-1635, by military service in Italy and the Low Countries, and again for a
year or more in Catalonia. In 1637 he became a Knight of the Order of
Santiago, and in 1651 he entered the priesthood, rising to the dignity of
Superior of the Brotherhood of San Pedro in Madrid. He held various offices in
the court of Philip IV, who rewarded his services with pensions, and had his
plays produced with great splendor. He died May 5, 1681.
At the time when Calderon began to compose for the stage, the Spanish
drama was at its height. Lope de Vega, the most prolific and, with Calderon,
the greatest, of Spanish dramatists, was still alive; and by his applause gave
encouragement to the beginner whose fame was to rival his own. The national
type of drama which Lope had established was maintained in its essential
characteristics by Calderon, and he produced abundant specimens of all its
varieties. Of regular plays he has left a hundred and twenty; of "Autos
Sacramentales," the peculiar Spanish allegorical development of the medieval
mystery, we have seventy-three; besides a considerable number of farces.
The dominant motives in Calderon`s dramas are characteristically
national: fervid loyalty to Church and King, and a sense of honor heightened
almost to the point of the fantastic. Though his plays are laid in a great
variety of scenes and ages, the sentiment and the characters remain
essentially Spanish; and this intensely local quality has probably lessened
the vogue of Calderon in other countries. In the construction and conduct of
his plots he showed great skill, yet the ingenuity expended in the management
of the story did not restrain the fiery emotion and opulent imagination which
mark his finest speeches and give them a lyric quality which some critics
regard as his greatest distinction.
Of all Calderon`s works, "Life is a Dream" may be regarded as the most
universal in its theme. It seeks to teach a lesson that may be learned from
the philosophers and religious thinkers of many ages - that the world of our
senses is a mere shadow, and that the only reality is to be found in the
invisible and eternal. The story which forms its basis is Oriental in origin,
and in the form of the legend of "Barlaam and Josaphat" was familiar in all
the literatures of the Middle Ages. Combined with this in the plot is the tale
of Abou Hassan from the "Arabian Nights," the main situations in which are
turned to farcical purposes in the Induction to the Shakespearean "Taming of
the Shrew." But with Calderon the theme is lifted altogether out of the
atmosphere of comedy, and is worked up with poetic sentiment and a touch of
mysticism into a symbolic drama of profound and universal philosophical
significance.
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