Calderon De LA Barca: Six Plays

Rating:
Summary: This book is very useful.
Review: Sometimes, people have to read one of these 6 plays in Spanish class. It is very difficult to comprehend. This really helped me understand the story fully. The stories in here are very well translated, and I recommend this book to anyone who has to read one of the six plays in Spanish class.

Rating:
Summary: Vivid Translations
Review: This book is an excellent compilation of six plays translated by Edwin Honig and published between 1961 and 1993. In the translations there is a sense of the need to retain the poetic character of the plays while presenting them in a language easily understood by a modern audience. The plays included are: Secret Vengance for Secret Insult, Devotion to the Cross, The Mayor of Zalamea, The Phantom Lady, Life is a Dream, and The Crown of Absalom. All of the plays follow the theme of the Spanish Code of Honor and what psychological complexities it creates, particularly as the characters are torn by love versus the need to maintain one's honor. It is not hard to see that in our own culture there are traces of the patterns of thinking so brilliantly elaborated in these plays. The language is vivid and the action is propelled by the words, while the poetic moments give us insight into the thinking of the characters. While there are many wonderful moments to mention in each of the plays, overall we must be grateful to Honig for his bringing for our enjoyment some of the less common plays. To appreciate some of the skilfull contributions of Honig to this effect, one should compare a few phrases first in the Spanish and then in several translations:

At the beginning of the Mayor of Zalamea: SPANISH: ¡Cuerpo de Cristo con quien Desta suerte hace marchar De un lugar a otro lugar Sin dar un refresco!

HONIG: I say, damn his bloody hide for forcing us to march this way from town to town without a break!

FITZGERALD: Confound, say I, these forced marches from place to place, without halt or bait; what say you friends?

In the greatest psychological and philosophical play by Calderon: Life is a Dream:

SPANISH: ¡Ay mísero de mí! ¡Ay infelice! Apurar, cielos, pretendo, ya que me tratáis asi, qué delito cometí contra vosotros naciendo aunque si nací, ya entiendo qué delito he cometido: bastante causa ha tenido vuestra justicia y rigor, pues el delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido.

HONIG: Heavens above, I cry to you, in misery and wretchedness, what crime against you did I commit by being born, to deserve this treatment from you? - although I understand my being born is crime enough, and warrants your sternest judgement, since the greatest sin of man is his being born at all.

Coleford:Oh, wretched me! Alas, unhappy man! I strive, oh Heav'n, since I am treated so, To find out what my crime against thee was In being born; although in being born I understand just what my crime has been. Thy judgement harsh has had just origin: To have been born is mankind's greatest sin.

Rating:
Summary: Vivid Translations
Review: This book is an excellent compilation of six plays translated by Edwin Honig and published between 1961 and 1993. In the translations there is a sense of the need to retain the poetic character of the plays while presenting them in a language easily understood by a modern audience. The plays included are: Secret Vengance for Secret Insult, Devotion to the Cross, The Mayor of Zalamea, The Phantom Lady, Life is a Dream, and The Crown of Absalom. All of the plays follow the theme of the Spanish Code of Honor and what psychological complexities it creates, particularly as the characters are torn by love versus the need to maintain one's honor. It is not hard to see that in our own culture there are traces of the patterns of thinking so brilliantly elaborated in these plays. The language is vivid and the action is propelled by the words, while the poetic moments give us insight into the thinking of the characters. While there are many wonderful moments to mention in each of the plays, overall we must be grateful to Honig for his bringing for our enjoyment some of the less common plays. To appreciate some of the skilfull contributions of Honig to this effect, one should compare a few phrases first in the Spanish and then in several translations:

At the beginning of the Mayor of Zalamea: SPANISH: ¡Cuerpo de Cristo con quien Desta suerte hace marchar De un lugar a otro lugar Sin dar un refresco!

HONIG:I say, damn his bloody hide for forcing us to march this way from town to town without a break!

FITZGERALD: Confound, say I, these forced marches from place to place, without halt or bait; what say you friends?

In the greatest psychological and philosophical play by Calderon: Life is a Dream:

SPANISH:¡Ay mísero de mí! ¡Ay infelice! Apurar, cielos, pretendo, ya que me tratáis asi, qué delito cometí contra vosotros naciendo aunque si nací, ya entiendo qué delito he cometido: bastante causa ha tenido vuestra justicia y rigor, pues el delito mayor del hombre es haber nacido.

HONIG:Heavens above, I cry to you, in misery and wretchedness, what crime against you did I commit by being born, to deserve this treatment from you? - although I understand my being born is crime enough, and warrants your sternest judgement, since the greatest sin of man is his being born at all.

Coleford:Oh, wretched me! Alas, unhappy man! I strive, oh Heav'n, since I am treated so, To find out what my crime against thee was In being born; although in being born I understand just what my crime has been. Thy judgement harsh has had just origin: To have been born is mankind's greatest sin.