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'''La vida es sueño''' ('''Life is a Dream''') is a comedy written by Spanish playwright Pedro Calderón de la Barca; it is perhaps his most well-known work. The central argument is the conflict between free will and fate.

Contents

Characters

Synopsis

Plot

Act 1 (Day 1)

Act 2 (Day 2)

Act 3 (Day 3)

Analysis of Segismundo’s soliloquy

Themes

External links

Characters

★ 'Basilio', King of Poland.

★ 'Segismundo', his Son, prince [of Poland]

★ 'Astolfo', Duke of Muscovy.

★ 'Clotaldo', a Nobleman.

★ 'Estrella', a Princess.

★ 'Rosaura', a Lady.

★ 'Clarin', her Servant.

★ Soldiers.

★ Guards.

★ Musicians.

★ Attendants.

★ Ladies.

★ Servants.
Though Segismundo is free at the plays end, suggesting that free will triumphs over predestination, the play is a tragedy in the sense that nobody can forget the past and Segismundo will always have this existencial dilemma and confusion with differentiating reality and fantasy.

Synopsis

In the play, the king of Poland has had his son Segismundo imprisoned all of his life because it has been prophesied that the son will bring disaster to the country. The king tells his subjects that his son died after childbirth. After his son has grown to be a man, the king reveals to his court that his son lives, and allows the court to vote in favor of allowing the son to become heir. However, the son turns out to be violent, killing a man and attempting rape. For this he is drugged and returned to his prison, and told upon waking that the previous day's events were merely a dream. Still, his jailer scolds him for his un-princely behaviour, which prompts remorse in Segismundo. Rebels against the king, who have found out about the treatment of Segismundo, break him out of prison. The rebels defeat the king's army; however, Segismundo doubts again if he is in reality or a dream, finally deciding that even in a dream we have to behave well because "God is God" and forgives the king . The play ends in a wedding.

Plot

Act 1 (Day 1)

Rosaura, disguised as a man and accompanied by her squire, Clarín, is heading for the royal court of Poland to take vengeance on Astolfo, who had promised to marry her, but abandoned her. She carries a sword that belonged to her father, whom she had never met. Upon arriving in Poland, at nightfall, she has an accident. She glimpses a light in the distance and follows it to a tower, where Segismundo has been imprisoned since birth. At this point, Segismundo delivers his famous monologue, “Ay! Misero de mi, ay, infelice,” expressing his unhappiness. He asks why he has been deprived of liberty all his life, when birds, beasts, fish, and even streams are free.
Clotaldo discovers Rosaura and Clarín, and detains them to bring them before the king since nobody can know about the existence of Segismundo. Clotaldo recognizes Rosaura’s sword as his own, and struggles with fulfilling his duty to the king and saving his descendant, but does not disclose his dilemma to Rosaura.

Act 2 (Day 2)

In the second day, we know why Segismundo is imprisoned in a dungeon since birth: an oracle predicted that he would be a cruel king, so his father, Basilio, enclosed him.
Basilio has devised a trap to discover whether Segismundo is really cruel:
he is drugged, taken into the palace, and presented with his rightful position, reserving the possibility of making him believe that everything is a dream lest he behave unjustly.
Rosaura is safe, and enters as an attendant of Estrella.
Segismundo acts like a tyrant prince, throwing a servant from the window shortly after waking up, attempting to rape Rosaura, hurting Clotaldo when he comes to help his daughter, and involving himself in a swordfight with Astolfo. In light of his behavior, the king decides to drug him again and take him back to the tower.
Astolfo courts Estrella, since with their union they would share the succession to the throne instead of competing for it once Segismundo is out of the picture. Astolfo recognizes Rosaura (who is going by the name Astrea), and they break off for good.
The day finishes with Segismundo, once again in the tower, asking himself if it could all have been a dream, and closes with the famous verses that give name to the play:
:What is life? A frenzy.

:What is life? An illusion,

:A shadow, a fiction,

:And the greatest profit is small;

:For all of life is a dream,

:And dreams are nothing but dreams.

This soliloquy is to Spanish literature what ''Hamlet'' 's "To be or not to be" speech is to English literature.

Act 3 (Day 3)

The town of Poland, at finding out that they have a prince, organize a revolt and liberate Segismundo from his tower. Clotaldo frees Segismundo, allowing him to go with the king, and displaying that he has returned to his senses.
Rosaura wants to kill Astolfo, and tells her reasons to her father first, and then to Segismundo.
The king's troops and the prince's troops meet, and Segismundo wins. The two encounter each other face to face, and the king puts himself in Segismundo's hands, but Segismundo prostrates himself before the king instead. In light of the generous attitude of the prince, the king grants him the throne.
As king, Segismundo decides that Astolfo must keep his promise to marry Rosaura, while he himself promises to marry Estrella.

Analysis of Segismundo’s soliloquy

''La vida es sueño'' is one of Calderón’s most well known and well studied works. This interest not only hails from the play’s complex philosophy, but also from its notable dramatic structure. However, ever since Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo’s (1910) classification of ''La vida es sueño'' as a philosophical drama, criticism has largely dwelled on the existential issues of the work, often at the cost of paying specific attention to its formal dramatic characteristics.
A few central ideas constitute the major philosophical themes of the play: the opposition between destiny and liberty, the topic of life as a dream, and the theme of free will. These central themes overshadow other themes present, like the education of princes, the model ruler, power, and justice.
Segismundo’s soliloquy is separated into seven ten-line stanzas, except for the first verse. Each stanza has eight syllables.

Themes

The play is a derivation of the Christian legend of Barlaam and Josaphat, itself a derivation of the legend of the early years of Siddharta Gautama, which modern spectators may know from the film ''Little Buddha'' that illustrates so the Hindu-Buddhist concept of reality as illusion.
Another religious concept is that of free will against predestination.
Catholic Spain favoured the Counter-reformation, that defined the human will as able to choose the good (in cooperation with God's grace), against the Calvinist conception of the total depravity of the human will unless it is predestined by God to be renewed by grace.
Segismundo chooses pardon against the oracle.

External links

★ Full text at Project Gutenberg in an English translation

★ www.lavidaessueno.com Theater project produced by Puy Navarro in collaboration with Amnesty International. Francisco Reyes, Associate Producer. March 2007 at The Culture Project, NYC