Lope de Vega's life was a mixture of light and shadows, of passionate gentleness and candor, yet full of inconsistencies of character and regrettable sentimental mistakes. Despite this, his audience adored him and he was the poet of the people. Although his main dedication was the theater, he cultivated most of the genres of his time, including lyrical works, epics, and novels. His poetry is of extraordinary richness and variety,  largely determined by his plays and novels. 

His inspiration is both religious and profane. The themes in both aspects have a strong autobiographical motivation, describing in their verses a great variety of emotional states and sometimes detailed events of their existence. His poems being often hidden recounts of his love affairs, his audience read them eagerly. He masters the art of understanding human sentiments, his works usually having a happy ending, which further enhances the beauty of his poetry. Although he used with skill all the meters, the romance and the sonnet stands out in his repertoire. Eager to emulate the glory of the greatest poets of the Italian Renaissance (Ariosto and Tasso mainly), he wrote two important poems that imitate this style, La hermosura de Angélica and  Jerusalem conquistada.

As for his work in prose, he wrote a pastoral novel, La Arcadia (1598), another of the Byzantine novel genre, El peregrino en su patria (1604), and four short novels, in imitation of the exemplary novels of Cervantes. His most important prose work is La Dorotea (1632), a dialogue similar to the previous one entitled La Celestina, by Fernando de Rojas. Lope writes this work under the dramatic circumstances of the illness, remembering with nostalgic bitterness, in his seventies, his years of youth, and his love affairs with Elena Osorio. The author meditates with serenity and nobility on those past passions, narrating them in a terse and youthful way. This can be considered a work that matured in the author's mind throughout his life.

What made Lope famous is his fertility as a writer and theater innovator. He is considered the creator of the Spanish comedy, nicknamed by his audience "Fénix de los Ingenios españoles" (Fenix of Spanish creativity) and also "Monster of Nature". Such was his overflowing creative imagination and literary fruitfulness. He wrote about 1,500 plays, conserving more than three hundred and about fifty sacramental cars. The ideals that he normally exalts are the monarchical and the religious, with love and honor being themes that are constantly repeated in his works. For Lope, love is the most valuable passion, since it stimulates other virtues, such as courage, bravery, and the spirit of adventure.

 Love is unstoppable and mistakes made in its name lack responsibility, provided they do not upset the social order. Honor, or 'la honra', consists of the immaculate estimation that an individual has of himself and the concept in which society, therefore, esteems him. The prototype of a noble character in Lope's theater is the knight, in love, heroic, and in good standing, capable of the most dignified deeds and the most tender feelings. Unlike the classical dramatic tradition, where only noble characters could be the protagonists of the theatrical work, Lope introduces the rich villain as the protagonist, who in the previous theater only appeared as silly or rustic. Not only is he a protagonist, but he is worthy of the same sense of honor as previously noble characters. Many of Lope's works revolve around the concept of honor and his need for revenge when he is wronged.

Lope also incorporated into the theater the great themes of the past, with his great heroes of the Reconquest, studying chronicles and local traditions to extract the dramatic issues. With his work, the public accesses the scene of national history, from the remote events of past kingdoms to the imperial exploits of the moment. The Romancero Viejo, a collection of old ballads, which he knew to perfection, also provided themes for his work, paying homage to that venerable poetic corpus, assimilating himself with his spirit, and sometimes interspersing traditional romances with his works. Lope, aware that Spain was at the zenith of its power and the beginning of its decline, gave his public security, awareness of greatness, and faith in the country he loved.

La Arcadia

La Dragontea

El Isidro

La Hermosura de Angélica

La Vega del Parnaso

El desdichado por la honra

Guzmán el Bravo

La Filomena

El mejor alcalde, el rey

La dama boba

El perro del hortelano

El Arte nuevo de hacer comedias

Peribáñez y el comendador de Ocaña

The work is located in the town of Fuenteovejuna, ruled by a commander whose tyranny ends in violence.

Theater play

The Baroque is period characterized by a cultural development unwind due to the Counter-Reformation and the Council of Trent. In many respects, Baroque supposes a  return to the Middle Ages, ceasing the clear Renaissance separation between the natural and the supernatural. The Inquisition watches over any intellectual activity that does not highlight or otherwise avoids the transcendental. Scientific research and rational philosophy practically end in Spain, with Theology taking their place. Superstition supplants religiosity in people's minds and so-called miracles ubiquitously flourish. 

In this context, the Spanish genius, unable to create intellectually in other areas, takes refuge in the aesthetic task, with an impressive list of painters, sculptors, and architects who live in this era. The literature demonstrates the same splendor. When Cervantes was still alive,  other outstanding authors such as Lope de Vega, Góngora, and Quevedo wrote their literary masterpieces. Shortly after this giants of the Spanish literature history died, began his careers the last genius of the Baroque era, Calderón de la Barca and Gracián. Somehow, the limitation in freedom of expression is offset by an increase in artifice and exaggeration in style, subjecting the language of the Renaissance to an intense elaboration that gives rise to the two great movements of the time: the 'culteranismo' and the 'conceptismo'.

Baroque

Publication of the Romancero general

Second part of Guzmán de Alfarche,  by Mateo Alemán

Second parto fo Guzmán de Alfarche,  by Mateo Alemán

Propaplladia, by Bartolomé de Torres Naharro

Retrato de la Lozana andaluza, by Francisco Delicado

Flores de poetas ilustres, compiled by Pedro de Espinosa

Arte nuevo de hacer comedias, and second part of Comedies, by Lope de Vega

The Polifemo, by Luis de Góngora

Novelas ejemplares, by Miguel de Cervantes

Rimas sacras and fourth part of Comedies, by Lope de Vega

Viaje del Parnaso, by Miguel de Cervantes

Fuenteovejuna, by Lope de Vega

The Buscón, by Quevedo

La dama duende, and Casa con dos puertas mala es de guardar, by Calderón

El burlador de Sevilla, by Tirso de Molina

El burlador the Sevilla, by Tirso de Molina

La vida es sueño, by Calderón de la Barca

Soledades, by Góngora

Empresas políticas, by Saavedra Fajardo

Closing of the theaters until 1649

El Parnaso español, by Quevedo

Las Meninas by Velazquez

Giordano Bruno is burned at the stake

King Lear and Macbeth, by William Shakesperare

Spanish Bites

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"Fuenteovejuna" (1619)

By Lope de Vega

Time Period: Baroque

Genre: Theater play

Spanish Bites

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