One of Calderón’s finest works, La vida es sueño is probably his best-known play in the English-speaking world.
Building on the precepts outlined by Lope de Vega, Calderón developed the form to imbue his works with greater dramatic structure and philosophical depth. Scholars consider his corpus the high point of the Spanish Baroque theatre. One of Calderón’s finest works, La vida es sueño is probably his best-known play in the English-speaking world. The play was first published in 1635 as a comedia suelta [chapbook], a common form of publication popular from the 16th to the early 19th century.