Indeed, Pedro Calderón de la Barca belongs to his time, and his strong Spanish identity is nothing more than the consequence of the ties the playwright maintained with the natural and moral landscape of it. He was born in January 1600 in Madrid.

His reputation grew day by day, and Lope considered him the most capable Spanish poet of his time. Calderón took on the task of writing the "autos sacramentales" every year, which were performed at the Church's most solemn celebrations.

The authentically Spanish ideas that Calderón made evident with his work "Life is a Dream" owe their universality to their metaphysical quality. The sense of honor that permeates the work does not come solely from, nor is it exhausted by, the commands of the ceremonial code formulated by the nobility of Spain; it is something more: the demand of an eternal moral reason that acts even within the dream for honor and nothing else...