Pedro Calderón de la Barca(1600-1681)

One of the most famous playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age; his plays are well-known both for their unusual themes, nearly always concerning the "pundonor" (a sense of honor carried to ridiculous and controversial extremes) and their extravagant use of poetic language. His best known play, "La Vida Es Sueño" (Life Is A Dream) contains the most famous soliloquy in Spanish theatre , as famous in Spanish as Hamlet's "To be or not to be" is in English.