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A Dream Is Life
Der Traum, ein Leben, das Calderons "Traum-ein Leben" und Voltaires "Le blanc et le noir" zum Vorbild hat, ist im Stil des Barocktheaters der Wiener Volksbühne geschrieben. In dem märchenhafte Züge enthaltenden Drama verschwimmen Traum- und Wirklichkeit ineinander.
Rustan, der Held des Dramas, für den Tun und Handeln wichtig sind, zieht tatkräftiges Handeln der Muße vor. In seinem Wunsch nach Größe und Heldenhaftigkeit sucht er durch die Ermutigung des Sklaven Zanga den Weg aus der Eintönigkeit des Daseins in der Hütte seines Onkels. Als Rustan mit Hilfe Zangas den Fürsten von Samarkand vor einem wilden Tier rettet, verspricht ihm dieser seine Tochter Gülnare und das Königsreich. Auf dem Weg zu Ruhm und Reichtum verfällt er aber durch die Listen Zangas dem Verbrechen und kehrt daraufhin reumütig in sein früheres Dasein zurück. Nur das Erwachen aus dem Traum ermöglicht ihm die Flucht vor dem Abgrund. Rustan gelangt am Ende zur Einsicht, dass Größe und Ruhm zu viele Gefahren in sich bergen.
A Dream Is Life, based on Calderon's "Life is a Dream" and Voltaire's "The White and Black,” is written in the style of the baroque theater of the Vienna People’s Stage. In the fairytale-like drama, dream and reality blur into one another.
Rustan, the protagonist of the drama prefers active action to leisure. In his desire for greatness and heroism, encouraged by the slave Zanga, he looks to find his way out of the monotony of existence in his uncle's cottage. When Rustan is credited with saving the King of Samarkand from a wild animal, the King promises him his daughter Gülnare and the kingdom. On the way to fame and fortune, however, Rustan’s ambition leads his astray.
Rustan, der Held des Dramas, für den Tun und Handeln wichtig sind, zieht tatkräftiges Handeln der Muße vor. In seinem Wunsch nach Größe und Heldenhaftigkeit sucht er durch die Ermutigung des Sklaven Zanga den Weg aus der Eintönigkeit des Daseins in der Hütte seines Onkels. Als Rustan mit Hilfe Zangas den Fürsten von Samarkand vor einem wilden Tier rettet, verspricht ihm dieser seine Tochter Gülnare und das Königsreich. Auf dem Weg zu Ruhm und Reichtum verfällt er aber durch die Listen Zangas dem Verbrechen und kehrt daraufhin reumütig in sein früheres Dasein zurück. Nur das Erwachen aus dem Traum ermöglicht ihm die Flucht vor dem Abgrund. Rustan gelangt am Ende zur Einsicht, dass Größe und Ruhm zu viele Gefahren in sich bergen.
A Dream Is Life, based on Calderon's "Life is a Dream" and Voltaire's "The White and Black,” is written in the style of the baroque theater of the Vienna People’s Stage. In the fairytale-like drama, dream and reality blur into one another.
Rustan, the protagonist of the drama prefers active action to leisure. In his desire for greatness and heroism, encouraged by the slave Zanga, he looks to find his way out of the monotony of existence in his uncle's cottage. When Rustan is credited with saving the King of Samarkand from a wild animal, the King promises him his daughter Gülnare and the kingdom. On the way to fame and fortune, however, Rustan’s ambition leads his astray.
128 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1834
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About the author
Franz Grillparzer
656 books32 followersFranz Seraphicus Grillparzer was an Austrian writer who emerged primarily as a playwright. Because of the identity-creating use of his works, especially after 1945, he is also referred to as the Austrian national poet.
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November 29, 2020Rustan wants to leave his home, so he goes away with his servant, Zanga. But by chance, he meets the king. He believes, Rustan saved his life and promises him many things. To prevent the secret from coming to light, many must die at the hands of Rustan and Zanga, but the king's daughter takes revenge. When Rustan wakes up from his sleep, he asks himself ,if all this really happened. The book is interesting from the beginning and the twist in the book is fascinating.
February 6, 2023
A despairing fairytale about the coming of age of the ambitious Rustan.
The story beats are not very surprising for the kind of lesson this play is going for. For the modern reader the conclusion may be unsatisfying, but that makes it nice food for thought. The dangers of youthful aspiration are harrowingly explored with the text only coming alive due to Grillparzer's lyricism. And yes, the slave character is a - albeit non-stereotypical - racist depiction. The end makes it a little bit better, I guess.
The writing was good, the story a little bland. I probably wouldn't watch it in the theater but I'd read it again, maybe.
The story beats are not very surprising for the kind of lesson this play is going for. For the modern reader the conclusion may be unsatisfying, but that makes it nice food for thought. The dangers of youthful aspiration are harrowingly explored with the text only coming alive due to Grillparzer's lyricism. And yes, the slave character is a - albeit non-stereotypical - racist depiction. The end makes it a little bit better, I guess.
The writing was good, the story a little bland. I probably wouldn't watch it in the theater but I'd read it again, maybe.
June 23, 2020
I read an English translation of this play some time back (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...). It is a good, but old-fashioned, translation, but the only one I could find. I have a professional interest in the play, so I thought I’d read it in the original German using this student edition.
This play is better approached as an operatic tale full of sweeping sentiment, wrought language and swelling song. For at its core it is a simple fairy tale or a magical folk tale – an ambitious young man is lured from a pastoral, rural paradise to find adventure and opportunity in the big city only to realize that all this striving and struggling makes him miserable, and he barely escapes to find happiness in the peaceful beauty of the mountains.
Like a fairy tale, the characters are more types than individuals. There is more gesture than action, more formula than plot. Like an antique musical box with moving figurines that dance to the music, one should enjoy it for its grace, beauty and spectacle.
In thought, the play is thoroughly old fashioned and sentimental. I don’t think the play is to supposed to have a social message. It is very much about hearth and home. But the 21st century reader can’t help but notice that the natural order of things is not to be challenged or questioned. To seek to be more than you are is to risk disaster. The play is anti-revolutionary. It should be noted that the slave in the play is full of ambition and striving and dreams, while the slave owner is content with the existing, sleepy order of things.
The modern audience may find itself rooting for Rustan’s success (I did) despite Grillparzer’s best efforts to present him as awful as possible without irrevocably staining him as a pariah. I was hoping for Rustan’s success primarily because the King is such an odious being. Vacillating, cowardly, trivial, untrusting, untrustworthy, moody -- he makes Rustan’s deadly ambition and moral waverings seem positively heroic. But don’t gets your hope up for Rustan to succeed, Grillparzer throws every obstacle at him, no matter how impossibly improbable and coincidental. (It is a fairy tale after all.)
Modern people like to root for the upstart and the ambitious, especially when the old order seems corrupt and fossilized. But one needs to understand that, in 1830, glorifying the overthrow of kings would be detrimental to one’s long term employment, and perhaps even breathing. Ambition to be more than you are or were born is a very modern (somewhat American) concept.
This student edition is helpful. It provides a very good literary guide, with an extensive introduction and footnotes (all in English). Yates provides a guide to reading the German original, plus explanations of obscure allusions.
This is not a play I’d highly recommend unless you are interested in German drama history. I think Grillparzer has better plays like Sappho.
This play is better approached as an operatic tale full of sweeping sentiment, wrought language and swelling song. For at its core it is a simple fairy tale or a magical folk tale – an ambitious young man is lured from a pastoral, rural paradise to find adventure and opportunity in the big city only to realize that all this striving and struggling makes him miserable, and he barely escapes to find happiness in the peaceful beauty of the mountains.
Like a fairy tale, the characters are more types than individuals. There is more gesture than action, more formula than plot. Like an antique musical box with moving figurines that dance to the music, one should enjoy it for its grace, beauty and spectacle.
In thought, the play is thoroughly old fashioned and sentimental. I don’t think the play is to supposed to have a social message. It is very much about hearth and home. But the 21st century reader can’t help but notice that the natural order of things is not to be challenged or questioned. To seek to be more than you are is to risk disaster. The play is anti-revolutionary. It should be noted that the slave in the play is full of ambition and striving and dreams, while the slave owner is content with the existing, sleepy order of things.
The modern audience may find itself rooting for Rustan’s success (I did) despite Grillparzer’s best efforts to present him as awful as possible without irrevocably staining him as a pariah. I was hoping for Rustan’s success primarily because the King is such an odious being. Vacillating, cowardly, trivial, untrusting, untrustworthy, moody -- he makes Rustan’s deadly ambition and moral waverings seem positively heroic. But don’t gets your hope up for Rustan to succeed, Grillparzer throws every obstacle at him, no matter how impossibly improbable and coincidental. (It is a fairy tale after all.)
Modern people like to root for the upstart and the ambitious, especially when the old order seems corrupt and fossilized. But one needs to understand that, in 1830, glorifying the overthrow of kings would be detrimental to one’s long term employment, and perhaps even breathing. Ambition to be more than you are or were born is a very modern (somewhat American) concept.
This student edition is helpful. It provides a very good literary guide, with an extensive introduction and footnotes (all in English). Yates provides a guide to reading the German original, plus explanations of obscure allusions.
This is not a play I’d highly recommend unless you are interested in German drama history. I think Grillparzer has better plays like Sappho.
January 22, 2019
A Dream Is Life was inspired by Calderon’s almost-mystical Life Is a Dream. In Life Is a Dream, the lead character never really has a dream but it is convinced that what happened to him was just a dream (causing a wonderful confusion). Instead, Grillparzer uses the “all just a dream” (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...) plot in which the lead goes through a series of adventures (often misadventures), only to realize it was just a dream. (And usually learning a valuable lesson.) Think Alice in Wonderland or the movie version of The Wizard of Oz. (Though these contain an element of “was it just a dream?”)
In this melodramatic play, Rustan is a bold young man who pines to leave the rural life and seek adventure and war. In a dream he does leave, and he becomes entangled in murders and battles and betrayals which lead to his imminently horrible death – whereupon he wakes up and realizes the beauty of the rural life.
Grillparzer is almost unheard of in the English-speaking world. Few of his plays are available in English. This particular play has only been translated once that I know of. (A workmanlike translation, but hardly sparkling with poetic energy.) But it’s not hard to see why. Although a friend of Goethe and Beethoven, Grillparzer’s writing lacked their dark streak and depth (as most people do), and he ended up writing melodramas and romances that were popular in his day. To contemporary audiences, his plays are stiff relics.
The exaggerated melodrama of A Dream Is Life is better suited to the operatic field, and it was made into an opera. (Which may be more familiar to English speakers.) It features the classic love of the pastoral, and curse on the striving, urban world.
There are some beautiful speeches and a better translation might make this more readable. But until another version is available, this can be skipped.
In this melodramatic play, Rustan is a bold young man who pines to leave the rural life and seek adventure and war. In a dream he does leave, and he becomes entangled in murders and battles and betrayals which lead to his imminently horrible death – whereupon he wakes up and realizes the beauty of the rural life.
Grillparzer is almost unheard of in the English-speaking world. Few of his plays are available in English. This particular play has only been translated once that I know of. (A workmanlike translation, but hardly sparkling with poetic energy.) But it’s not hard to see why. Although a friend of Goethe and Beethoven, Grillparzer’s writing lacked their dark streak and depth (as most people do), and he ended up writing melodramas and romances that were popular in his day. To contemporary audiences, his plays are stiff relics.
The exaggerated melodrama of A Dream Is Life is better suited to the operatic field, and it was made into an opera. (Which may be more familiar to English speakers.) It features the classic love of the pastoral, and curse on the striving, urban world.
There are some beautiful speeches and a better translation might make this more readable. But until another version is available, this can be skipped.
gave-up-on
April 16, 2021What a lazy, thoughtless piece of writing. Grillparzer is trying to be extra exotic by mixing in weird names, a "negro slave" (who - of course - has no sense of honor and is the biggest opportunist around so our white hero doen'st have to do the unpleasant stuff himself), and a super hot martial princess, who'd much rather be a man and fight. Also, the plot is all over the place, but not in a good Magic Flute kind of way.
Also, the language. Ugh. DNF and instant purge.
Also, the language. Ugh. DNF and instant purge.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews