A Note on the Popularity of Boissy's la Vie est un songe

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

direction to this effect, evidently turns on his sister, when he says:¿Esto has hecho contra mi? It seems clear that Feliciana has set Elvira free in the hope of somehow saving her from Tello. Elvira does not gain her freedom , but Sancho gets the evidence he needs. Except for one speech when Feliciana asks how it is possible to save Elvira from a person so beside himself as Tello, it looks as though Feliciana is siding with her brother in begging him not to treat Elvira so cruelly and in asking him to wait another day before carrying things to extremes. The truth of the matter is that Feliciana knows her brother well enough to realize that she can gain nothing by opposing him directly, that such an attitude will only make him more violent. Her only possible recourse is to pretend to side with him and play for time. Every day gained is a partial victory, and there is always the chance that something will happen to prevent Tello's doing violence to Elvira. In short, Feliciana is an essential character in the play and her opposition to her brother is a necessary part of the action. Feliciana is never hateful, she never actually helps her brother. She is not weak, or "abyecta." She is anything but the Leporello in Mozart's opera, as Klein would have us believe. Feliciana has been maligned. A Note on the Popularity of Boissy's la Vie est un songe by Charles B. Qualia Texas Technological College An Italian version of La vida es sueño1 was presented at the Théâtre Italien in Paris in 1717. This version was translated into French the same year by Thomas Gueulette and was published side by side with the Italian version. In 1738 Charles Coypei2 "treated the subject" of La vida es sueño in French and this play was presented at the College des Quatre Nations with such success the Duchesse du Maine asked the students to present it at the palace of Sceaux.3 In 1732 Louis de Boissy presented at the Théâtre Italien a French version of the anonymous Italian play of 17 17.4 At first this play was received with reserve, but it became rather popular as the century wore on, and was presented some fifty times between 1732 and 1788, according to Desboulmiers .5 In the main Boissy has kept the characters as Calderón has them in the original, except that Rosaura is called Sophronie and Estrella is left out entirely because the classical rules required that the subplot of Astolfo and Estrella be eliminated. Astolfo becomes Fédéric, Grand-Duc de Moscovie. Clarín becomes Arlequin. Boissy's comédie-héroïque is divided into three acts, and the verses are of irregular length (8 to 13 syllables) and irregular rhyme—vers libres, in other words. Whereas in the Spanish original there are 3315 verses of eight syllables, the French version has been cut down to 1337 verses. Even allowing for the difference in length of most of the French verses, we still have a much longer play in the original. Boissy's play begins roughly at that point where Basilio tells Astolfo and Estrella why he imprisoned Segismundo. Ulric, a Grand de la Cour, and the King come to the tower seeking Sigismond. In the original, it will be recalled, Rosaura and Clarín find Segismundo by chance. All the Rosaura-Violante story in Jornada I is omitted by Boissy in the interest of classical simplicity of plot. For the same reason the action created by Estrella and Astolfo is omitted, as noted above. By stripping the speeches of the wordiness of the original, Boissy has made the main theme of his play a much more direct and forceful appeal for the freedom of the individual . This theme of freedom was growing in popularity: the rebelliousness of the chained prince became a symbol of the universal individual yearning for freedom and rebelling against the royal power.6 Sigismond declaims against Heaven for his enslavement and reminds Arlequin that Tout est né libre, et je porte des fers, (1,4) and he calls...