ABOUT THIS BOOK

A beautiful and haunting tale of love, betrayal, knowledge, and power, Life's a Dream (La vida es sueño, 1636) is the best known and most widely admired play of Catholic Europe's greatest dramatist, Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681). Calderón's long life witnessed both the pinnacle and collapse of Spanish political power as well as the great flowering of Spanish classical literature. Michael Kidd's new prose translation renders Calderón's masterpiece into a transparent, modern American idiom that preserves the beauty and complexity of Calderón's Baroque Spanish. The result is a highly readable and adaptable text that is enhanced by a generous selection of supporting materials, including a thorough critical introduction and glossary.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Michael Kidd is an associate professor at Augsburg College.

REVIEWS

"A snappy, playable though poetic prose translation by Michael Kidd (Carleton College) of Calderón's famous La vida es sueño. That is arguably the best of the 500 plays that survive from this dramatist's alleged 2000 efforts. Moreover, the translation comes with excellent critical introduction, supporting materials, and a glossary. Life's a Dream . . . is the best choice for any university or other theater group that wants to stage this play. The fact that modern English prose cannot capture the florid fol-de-rol of early seventeenth-century Spanish is actually an advantage. The love story and the political implications emerge unscathed."
—Chronique, Biliothèque d'Humanisme et Renaissance

"Kidd advances the work of two often-exclusive camps of comediantes: scholarship and performance. ...[C]oming to this text from a background of experience in both the study and performance of Golden Age drama, this reviewer is inclined to join in the applause. For any working theater director, Kidd's introduction alone is a dream come true. As La Vida es Sueno is one of the foundational texts of the period, this important new translation marks its identity as a founding contribution to that burgeoning community."
—Bulletin of Hispanic Studies

"This is a faithful, accurate, and eminently actable poetic prose translation of Calderón's masterpiece, which ingeniously resolves its many intricate linguistic and semantic puzzles."
—José María Ruano de la Haza, University of Ottawa

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

Preface

Introduction

Translator's Notes

Suggestions for Directors

Selected Bibliography

Life’s a Dream: A Prose Translation

Cast of Characters

Act 1

Act 2

Act 3

Glossary

REQUEST ACCESSIBLE FILE

If you are a student who cannot use this book in printed form, BiblioVault may be able to supply you with an electronic file for alternative access.

Please have the accessibility coordinator at your school fill out this form.

It can take 2-3 weeks for requests to be filled.