Abstract

This article analyzes the initial sequence of Calderón’s La vida es sueño (vv. 1-102) by studying the relationships between metric form (silvas), dramatic space, characters’ actions, and style. Comparing the initial sequences in silvas of other comedies included in the Primera and Segunda Parte of Calderón’s comedies, it points out the recurring motif of shipwrecking; in doing so, it stresses how Rosaura’s itinerary, from the initial situation when she has been bucked off by her horse to her discovery of Segismundo’s jail, echoes the shipwrecked wandering’s itinerary in the initial sequence of Góngora’s Soledad primera. The sequence in silvas in the third act of La vida es sueño is built in chiasm with this initial sequence to highlight the radical change that protagonists are about to accomplish.