Pedro Calderon de la Barca y Henao shows what is ephemeral in existence and, at the same time, demonstrates the divine and eternal aspects of human life in his play La Vida Es Sueno. The title of the baroque Spanish play is usually translated into English as Life is a Dream, but (like all translations) this is somewhat misleading. A more accurate rendition of Barca's intent might be a line known to children in English-speaking countries throughout time and across the world: "Life Is But a Dream." The line from the children's round of "Row, Row, Row Your Boat" and Barca's play reflect the same essential philosophy about the world, in which spiritual goodness and nobility are the only real things that one can know: Everything else that happens in life is of no true consequence and may be relied upon only as much as we give credence to the figures that visit us in our dreams.
This paper examines the central character of Life is a Dream, the captured and tormented prince Segismundo, as a way of analyzing both the particular way this character and this play connect with and affect the audience and more generally as a way of examining Barca's general intentions in what have come to be known as his secular plays. There are two over-riding themes in this play (which are shared by much of Barca's work), each of which is expressed in a single speech of Clotaldo's in the opening of the play. The old tutor states that "I still cannot decide/If these events are just illusions or/Are really true" (Barca 12), summing up before Segismundo does himself the central question of the prince's and all human life. But while the fickleness of both fate and appearances is certainly the central motif of the play, nearly equally important (and of greater importance in many of Barca's other plays) is the significance of honor, which "Is of such fragile stuff that just one touch/Will crack it, or a breath will tarnish it" (Barca 13). The two ideas are no...