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Calderon 1600 - 1681 (81)

When love is not madness, it is not love.


QUOTES

Life is a Dream

We live, while we see the sun,
Where life and dreams are as one;
And living has taught me this,
Man dreams the life that is his,
Until his living is done.
The king dreams he is king, and he lives
In the deceit of a king,
Commanding and governing;
And all the praise he receives
Is written in wind, and leaves
A little dust on the way
When death ends all with a breath.


 Pedro Calderón (de la Barca), January 17, 1600 - May 25, 1681, was a Spanish playwright and poet, considered to be one of the world's leading dramatists. Born in Madrid, his mother died when he was 10, his father was a wealthy public servant who indented him to be a clergyman. He sent him for theological studies at the University of Alcala de Henares but Calderon moved to Salamanca after a year to study low. In 1620 he won a poetry award and from 1623 he began to write plays for the court, rapidly becoming famous. After the death of Lope de Vega (1635) Calderón became the master of the Spanish stage, initiating the second style of Spanish Golden Age Theater.

In 1636 the king made him a Knight. In 1640, he took part in the Catalan Revolution. In 1653 he became the priest of the diocese of Toledo. At the same time he wrote incessantly, his writing production reached 120 works of historical, religious or ethnographic content. His most famous and most important work is "Life is a Dream" (La vida es sueno, 1635) in which he recounts the drama of human destiny and the temporality of human life, exploring the conflict between free will and predestination. “Life Is a Dream” tells the story of the King of Poland who imprisons his son in a tower from birth in order to protect his reign and thwart the predictions of astrologers who saw the boy taking his father's throne. Calderon never married but had at least one child. He died in Madrid on 25 May 1681 at the age of 81.