Travelling is a Dream (Travelling to Valencia)

• Report rights infringement
• published: 24 May 2010
• views: 133

Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Barreda González de Henao Ruiz de Blasco y Riaño usually referred as Pedro Calderón de la Barca (17 January 1600 25 May 1681), was a writer, poet and dramatist of the Spanish Golden Age. 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. As stated by Goethe, Calderón tended to write his plays taking special care about their dramatic structure. Hence, he usually reduced the number of scenes in his plays if compared to those of Lope de Vega, so as to avoid any superfluous one and present only those essential to the play, also reducing the number of different meters in his plays for the sake of gaining a greater style uniformity. Although his poetry and plays leaned towards the culteranismo, he usually reduced the level and obscurity of that style by avoiding metaphors and references away from those that uneducated viewers could understand. However, he had a like for symbolism, for example making a fall from a horse a metaphor of a fall into disgrace, the fall representing dishonour; the use of horoscopes or prophecies at the start of the play as a way of making false predictions about the following to occur, symbolizing the utter uncertainty of future. Besides, probably influenced by Cervantes, Calderón realized that any play was but fiction, and that the structure of the baroque play was entirely artificial, so he sometimes makes use of meta-theatrical techniques such as making his characters comment jocosely the clichés the author is using and they are forced to follow. Some of the most common themes of his plays were heavily influenced by his jesuit education. For example, as a reader of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Francisco Suárez, he liked to confront reason against passions, intellect against instinct, or understanding against will. As many writers from the Spanish Golden Age, his plays usually show his vital pessimism, that is only softened by his rationalism and his faith in God; the anguish and distress usually found his oeuvre is better exemplified in one of his most famous plays, Life is a dream, in which Segismundo claims: ¿Qué es la vida? Un frenesí. ¿Qué es la vida? Una ficción, una sombra, una ilusión, y el mayor bien es pequeño. ¡Que toda la vida es sueño, y los sueños, sueños son! Translation: What is life? A frenzy. What is life? A fiction, A shadow, an illusion, And the greatest profit is small; For all of life is a dream, And dreams, are nothing but dreams. Indeed, his themes tended to be complex and philosophical, and express complicated states of mind in a manner such as few playwrights have been able to do. As Gracián, Calderón favoured only the deepest human feelings and dilemmas. Since Calderón's plays were usually represented at the court of the King of Spain, he had access to the most modern techniques regarding scenography. He collaborated with Cosme Lotti in developing complex scenographies that were integrated in some of his plays, specially his most religious-themed ones such as the Autos Sacramentales, becoming extremely complex allegories of moral and religious concepts. In this record, I was travelling in train to Valencia - Spain, and for any reason, I remembered to Calderon de la Barca. It maybe because Travelling is a DREAM too. Enjoy it and dont forget to dream always in your life.