Pedro Calderon de la Barca's La Vida es Sueno (Life is a Dream, 1635)

On Monday (January 12), we discussed the general historical and political context of Siglo de Oro (Golden Age) Spain, and Felix Lope de Vega's seminal work of dramatic theory, El arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (The new art of writing comedies in this era, 1609). In this work, which is in one sense a manifesto of artistic freedom from neoclassicism, Lope demonstrates the kind of ambivalence about Stephen Toulmin had described in his book, Cosmopolis. On the one hand, Lope demands the right for himself and his contemporaries to compose new plays that do not adhere to the rules of Aristotle. On the other hand, he replaces the authority of the Greek and Roman ancients with that of Spanish tradition and custom. It is this persistent respect for authority in the creation of secular, vernacular arts that marks what Toulmin calls the "humanistic" phase of the Renaissance. Even though Lope's invocation of the "nuevo" suggests Hans Gumbrecht's third definition of the modern (the transitory "past of a future present"), his privileging of uso (Spanish custom) belies the belief in progress that we generally associate with a modern perspective.

Keep all this in the back of your mind as you read Calderon's play (Longman 588-616). For those of you who have studied earlier periods of drama, consider how the play retains aspects of classical drama in terms of dramatic structure (beginning with how the play is broken into acts and including the shape of the plot), characterization (what familiar "types" do the characters belong to?) and staging conventions called for in the text (what are the minimum requirements in terms of scenery, props, costumes, etc. to stage this play?) For everyone else, look for signs of the play's historical context. Is Spain's historical situation in 1635 evident in any way (an imperial absolutist monarcy making war throughout Europe and filling its coffers with American gold while its status as the preeminent power in Europe begins to fade in favor of England and France)? Do you see evidence of those Renaissance/Early Modern struggles between humanistic freedom and the authorities of Church, state and tradition? How do Sigismund, Rosaura and the rest compare to characters you've seen in Shakespeare? Do they behave "appropriately" to their types, or do they have more complex psychologies? Lastly, why does Calderon set his play in Poland rather than Spain?

Here are three images of corral theatres to give you a sense of where Calderon's play would have been staged. On the left is a rendering of a very early corral from the late 16th century. On the right, a photograph of a performance at Al Magra corral, a space that resembles a little more closely the mid-17th century corrales of Calderon's time. Note that, although it is still cozy compared to a large proscenium theatre, it is less intimate than the first theatre. On the bottom, a scholar's guess at how the different niches and galleries of the corral stage might have been arranged for a performance of La Vida es Sueno. How could you imagine the stage being used for a performance of this play? How might conventions of the corral (such as the location of lower-paying guests in the courtyard, nobility in the galleries and women in their own separate cazuela gallery) affect the choices available to actors in this play?