Felix Lope de Vega

Felix Lope de Vega Carpio is there a playwright and Spanish poet (November 25th, 1562 - August 27th, 1635), considered as one of the major writers of the Siècle of Spanish gold. Called by Miguel de Cervantes “the Phoenix, the monster of nature”, he is the founder of the Comedia nueva or tragi-comedy with Spanish at one time when the theater became a cultural phenomenon of mass. Lope de Vega was an extremely prolific author: he would have written approximately: 3000 sonnets, 9 epopees, of the novels: 1800 profane parts, 400 religious dramas, of many interludes. He cultivated all tons them and approached all the topics.

Friend of Quevedo and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, enemy of Shine of Góngora and envied by Cervantes, its life was as extreme as its work.

Biography

Youth

Felix Lope de Vega there Carpio, resulting from a humble family originating in Valle de Carriedo (Santander), is the son of Felix de Vega, binder, and of Francisca Fernández Flórez. If we do not know anything about his mother, on the other hand we know that his father settles with Madrid in 1561, after a short stay with Valladolid. Lope de Vega will affirm thereafter that his/her father came to Madrid to follow a conquest in love that his/her future mother will make break: Lope will be the fruit of the reconciliation of his/her parents and will owe his existence with the jealousy which it will be able to describe so well in its dramatic work.

Early child, it can read Latin and the Castilians dice the five years age. It is at this age that it composes its first towards. He reveals itself which it is at twelve years that he writes comedias ( Yo tired componía of ounce there doce años/of has cuatro actos has there cuatro pliegos/porque cada acto a pliego contenía ). Its talent opens the doors of the school to him inhabitant of Madrid of the poet and musician Vicente Espinel whom it will always quote with veneration, as in this sonnet: “Aquesta plucked, celebrates maestro/that me pusisteis in mow manos, cuando/los primeros characters firmando/estaba, temeroso poco diestro…” It continues there its formation with the Society of Jesus who will become later the Colegio Imperial (1574).

It continues then studies at the university of Alcalá de Henares during four years (1577 - 1581) but does not obtain any diploma. Its love life dissolue moves away it from the Sacerdoce and the grants of its guards. It earns its living by following the occupation of secretary of aristocrats or by writing comedias and piezas of circunstancias .

In 1583, it engages in the navy and fights battle against the Portuguese to Isla Terceira, under the orders of his/her future friend, Álvaro de Bazán, marquis de Santa Cruz de Mudela.

The exile

Then studying grammar with the Teatinos and mathematics with the Academia Real , it is used as secretary to the marquis of mow Navas, but it is inattentive of all its activities by its many love affairs.

From its first great love is born… the exile. Elena Osorio (the " Filis" of its worms), woman married with the actor Cristobal Calderón, and girl of the director Jerónimo Velázquez, becomes its first great love. Separated from its first husband, it remarie (obliged by his/her father, which will force the rupture with Lope) in noble Francisco Perrenot. Lope, by revenge, insults the family of this last via the wording. He denounces the situation in his comedia Belardo furioso and in a series of sonnets. He is then translated into justice and the sentence is severe: five years of prohibition of stay in Madrid and two years of exile of the kingdom of Castille, the whole under penalty of death.

Lope will remember this love in its novel Dorotea . But it is already again in love with Isabel de Alderete there Urbina (it the USA of the anagram " Belisa" in its worms), with which it Marie in 1588 after having removed it (the marriage having saved it of a new lawsuit). This same year, Lope engages in the Invincible Armada on the Galion San Juan . It appears then like a promising poet of its generation.

The Invincible Armada beaten, Lope returns to Valence in December 1588 with Isabel de Urbina. The theater being in full effervescence, Lope improves and attends many representations of which those of the Academia of los nocturnos (local Theater). It notices there the refusal of the unit of action, the Italian imbroglio .

In 1590, Lope settles again with Tolède and is put at the service of gift Francisco de Ribera Barroso and the duke of Alba, gift Antonio de Toledo there Beamonte, while being introduced like gentleman of room at the ducal court of Alba de Tormes, where he lived of 1592 with 1595. It discovers there the theater of Juan del Encina, and the character of the gracioso (servant buffoon) will begin again some by improving his dramatic aspect.

Isabel de Urbina dies in 1594. It is at this time that he writes his pastoral novel Arcadia .

The return in Castille

In 1595, last the eight years of exile, Lope returns to Madrid. The following year, it undergoes a new lawsuit due to cohabitation with the actress Antonia Trillo. In 1598, it Marie with Juana de Guardo, girl of a meat rich person trading of the court, which attracts to him the irony and the mockery of several of the great minds of the time (of which Luis of Góngora). Juana was apparently vulgar, with doubtful blood, and the marriage seemed more dictated by the money than by the love. Lope however had with Juana his/her preferred son, Carlos Felix, like three girls.

He saw until in 1603 with Seville as a secretary of the future count de Lemos, and maintains a serious relation with Micaela de Luján to which he dedicates many his worms. Married woman, actress, it had five children with her, of which its preferred, Marcela and Lope Felix. It is one of the important love affairs of Lope, and it seems that the latter finishes in 1608. Living between several family hearths and a great number of mistresses - much of actresses, as the lawsuit of cohabitation of 1596 shows it - Lope is seen in the obligation to ensure an expensive way of life and to support several legitimate relations and children or not. It arrives there thanks to a baited work, writing without slackening poetries and comedias , sometimes printed without second reading. It is only at thirty-eight years that Lope can finally correct and publish part of its work. As a writer by profession, he asks for obtaining of royalties on those which printed his comedias without its permission and, failing this, the right of correction of his own works.

In 1605 Lope enters to the service of Shine Fernandez de Cordoba there of Aragon, duke of Sessa. They become friendly until the death of Lope. In 1609, Lope presents its Arte nuevo hacer comedias , theoretical work capital. It enters to the brotherhood of esclavos del Santísimo Sacramento to which the great writers belonged then, of which Francisco de Quevedo, personal friend of Lope, and Cervantes, with which it maintained the relations tended following allusions against him that Don Quichotte gives.

In 1612, the death of his/her preferred son, then that of his wife Juana, the following year, marks a turning in its life.

Priesthood

The May 24th 1614, Lope de Vega is ordered priest. Its disordered life, its guilty loves and the death of its close relations undoubtedly caused an existential crisis at his place, which results in a more spiritual and religious inspiration. It is at this time that he writes the Rimas crowned and of many pious works, and its worms tint philosophical inspirations.

Luis of Góngora then causes an esthetic revolution in its Soledades . Even if one feels at Lope a new evolution in the writing of his worms, it holds with distancier of this “new esthetics” culturanist and makes fun about it even as soon as it of on the occasion. It with what Góngora reacts on its side, in particular by writing satires.

Lope must wipe others critical which relates to the non-observance of the three rules of unit. Pedro Torres Rámila, author of a Spongia in 1617, disparages not only the theater of Lope de Vega, but also all her narrative, epic and lyric work. It with what several humanistic friends of the Phoenix answered, Lopez de Aguilar at their head, in a text of 1618 “ Expostulatio Spongiae has Petro Hurriano Ramila nuper evulgatae. Pro Lupo has Vega Carpio, Poetarum Hispaniae Principe ”, and which contains their praises, for the most known, Tomás Tamayo de Vargas, Vicente Mariner, Luis Tribaldos de Toledo, Pedro de Padilla, Juan Luis of Cerda, Hortensio Felix Paravicino, Bartolomé Jiménez Patón, Francisco de Quevedo, the Count de Salinas, and Vicente Espinel.

It thus is criticized and attacked, but encouraged by the text which defends it, that Lope continuous to test itself in the kind epic ( Filomena , 1621 - Andrómeda , 1621 - Circe , 1624 - the rosa blanca , 1624 - corona trágica , 1627, on the life and the death of Marie Stuart).

End of its life

Lope ordered priest since 1614 - even if the act is certainly sincere - it cannot resist its temperament and continues a love life without real family happiness.

It falls in love with a beautiful young woman, Marta de Nevares, a scandal at the time sight its condition of priest. This relation is however serious until the death of Marta and caused frustration and bounce, with the image of its comedias . Lope cultivates comic and philosophical poetry while being duplicated in Divided into volumes of burlesque Burguillos, hétéronyme, and meditates peacefully on old age and its disordered youth.

It receives the honors of the king then, in 1624, Urbain VIII gives him the title of doctor in Théologie, but Lope becomes increasingly alone. All his/her parents and his family die (Marta becomes blind in 1626 and dies in 1628 - Lope Felix drowns in 1634 - Antonia Clara, preferred natural girl, secretary and confidante, is sequestered by a Hidalgo , etc), remaining to him only one girl, Marcela, nun, which will be the only one to survive to him. In spite of the torments of its personal life, Lope composes of very different works of kind and which are to be counted with the numbers of more literary great successes of the time: the comedias El castigo sin venganza (1631), the mayor virtud of a rey (1631), in prose: lyric Dorotea and especially works Rimas humanas there divinas which include Gatomaquia (1631).

Lope de Vega dies the August 27th 1635. The people of Madrid made him true national funeral. More than two hundred authors write its praises published with Madrid and Venice. Its immense talent and reputation are at the origin of one expression at the time: “ Es of Lope ”, “it of Lope”, is used to indicate that something was excellent. Cervantes, in spite of its antipathy for Lope then, called it “the monster of nature”.

Work in prose

Novels

Arcadia (1598): novel serving as a pretext for the presentation of its poems (more than 160). Work with the considerable repercussion at the time, of very many reprinted times of alive sound.
El peregrino in known patria (1604): Byzantine novel and of adventures which proceeds completely in Spain.
Pastores de Belén (1612): religious pastoral novel which tells events evangelic in relation to the birth of Christ. Prose and poems (167).

News

Tired Fortunas of Diana (1621).
the desdicha por will honra it (1624).
careful the venganza (1624).
Guzmán el Bravo (1624).

Action in prose

Dorotea (1632): work dialogued, later and in prose. Present also many poems. It evokes its loves for Elena Osorio there.

Historical prose

Triunfo of Fe in el reino of Japón por los anos 1614-1615 (1618).

Ascetic prose

Soliloquios amorosos of a alma has Dios (1626).

Critical (didactic and historical)

Five tests on poetry (1602-1623).
Justa poética in honor LED bienaventurado San Isidro (1620).
Relación of mow fiestas in the canonización of San Isidro (1622).

Work in worms

Lyric nun

Soliloquios (1612).
Rimas crowned (1614): poems primarily with the first nobody and directed to intimates “you” where Lope denounces and repent themselves of a disordered love life.
Romancero espiritual (1622).
Triunfos divinos (1625): priest since ten years, criticized, Lope is interested in the poetry crowned like instrument in order to approach the political power and ecclesiastical.

Lyric profane

Eclogues: has Amarilis (1633); has Filis (1635).
Epistles: has Arguijo ; has Rioja ; has Matias de Porras ; has Francisco de Herrera …
Rimas (1602 and 1604): collection of 200 sonnets. Considering its success, one second part is published in 1604.
Rimas humanas there divinas (1634): last collection of poems published by Lope de Vega, that it allots to Tomé of Burguillos, hétéronyme burlesque.

The lovesongs

Lope and Luis of Góngora are the leaders of a whole generation of young poets who make known themselves between 1580 and 1590. The authors are not worried to directly claim rights on their works. The attribution of many texts remains fuzzy still today. This new “wave” of lovesongs was very quickly accepted by the company of the time, and the authors mix conventional imagination, erotic loves, favors and scorn, experiments, etc

Narrative poems

Didactico-critical:

Laurel de Apolo (1630): Lope works via this work of poems to gain the favors of the higher realms and literary circles of the time (praises of poets of its time, legends mythological, but also personal attacks and satires).
Arte nuevo of hacer comedias (1609): major critical work where Lope fixes the rules of a theater which is essential at the time like a cultural phenomenon of mass.
Isagoge has los estudios compañía .
the vega del Parnaso (1637): poems published after its death, mixes dramas and lyric poems centered on the conscience of the dead one and which constitute a revolution of the poet by his lyric technique.

Descriptions:

Descripción of Abadia ; Descripción of Tapada ; the mañana of San Juan in Madrid ; Las fiestas of Denied , etc

Burlesque:

Gatomaquia (1634): burlesque poem epic more succeeded of Lope de Vega, but also of the Spanish kind epic.

Pastoral:

the selva sin amor (1630): eclogue pastoral, satire.

Monk:

El Isidro (1599): poem Hagiographique on the life of patron saint of Madrid, San Isidro. Lope had access to the official documents of beatification of the saint. Lope is very close to the rural world here where the saint lived, translating its real interest always to remain in contact with nature.

History:

corona trágica (1627): life and died of Marie Stuart.
Dragontea (1598): prohibited, Dragontea had to be printed in Valence, then published inside even of " will hermosura It of Angelica ". Tell the adventures to sir Francis Drake.
Jerusalén conquistada (1609): poem epic which tells the end of the Croisades.

Chivalrous:

will hermosura It of Angélica (1602): dedicated to his/her friend and poet Juan de Arguijo, Lope leaves side its life of sailor on the San Juan and tells the Angelica history in continuation of the challenge (that those which can do make best…) launched by Ludovico Ariosto in its Orlando Furioso .

Mythological:

Filomena (1621): varied poems and novels where Lope is tested mainly with the mythological legend.
Andrómeda (1621);
Circe (1624): work appreciably similar to Filomena in its mythological approach. Lope answers by exceeding the mythological legend fixed by its “enemy” Góngora.

Dramatic work and Comedia nueva

Or tragi-comedy with Spanish, founded by Lope de Vega.

The Spanish comedia represents one of the three large theaters invented by Europe of modern times (with the drama élisabéthain and the traditional French tragedy)

El arte nuevo of hacer comedias

El arte nuevo of hacer comedias ( new art to make comedies ), poetry in 379 endecasílabos , is published in 1609 in the edition of the Rimas . Lope de Vega imposes by this text the new shape of theater, which will quickly become a drug for the Spanish public of the 18th century. The action takes precedence over the reflection or the psychological depth. The jokes of inevitable the gracioso (the servant buffoon) are not always better taste… But the public will not weary Comedias which offer to the spectators a tragic and comic mixture, a different glance on the world, of the dream, but always under a preserving ideology and with the traditional values. The persistence of the medieval tradition through popular kinds like those of the coplas and the lovesongs are typical facts of the Spanish literary evolution, and the comedia nueva is born from these circumstances.

It is at the time of a conference that Lope de Vega presents its text in front of an assembly of scientists and the humanistic ones of Madrid.

J. - M. Rozas divides the text into three parts The first part, Leaves prologal (v. 1-48), which is presented in the form of a captatio benevolentiae . Lope is addressed to its audience with a certain irony, implying that all those which are present know better than him it way of writing a comedia and than it is initially it (bad) taste of the public which must be taken into account. One finds this captatio benevolentiae in the third part: Leaves epilogal (v.362-389).

In the second part ( Leaves doctrinal ) (v.49-461), Lope will make description of sound Arte nuevo and into present the concepts founders. A theoretical part divided itself into ten paragraphs presenting each one of these concepts:

the concept of the tragi-comedy.
units.
Division of the subject.
Language.
Metric.
the figures rhetorics.
Set of themes.
Lasted of the comedia .
the use of the satyr: intentionality.
On the representation.

Lope thus expresses its vision of a Arte nuevo which he wants to put at equality with the theatrical kind resulting from Antiquity. Its intention remains to be detached some by adapting it to the taste from the world baroque. It does it in an abrupt way, while being expressed by this very structured text, where it is advisable to specify that “Lope does not fear to raise the esthetic pleasure of the spectator (el vulgo) with the supreme row of standard of art”.

Lope insists initially on a skilful mixture of kind: the comic one and tragedy. Mix that Lope observes even in nature ( “buen ejemplo of the naturaleza/that por tal variedad holds belleza” ).

It does not take again the rule of the three units, observed with rigor in the theater French and sacrilized by the Italian theorists. It recommends only one temporal unit which remains probable. No the unit of action, taking as a starting point the " imbroglio" with Italian. As for the unity of place, he does not even speak about it. The part must be divided into three acts, or three days:

the first act consists of a presentation of the subject of the part and characters.
the second ties the drama.
the last gives the outcome of it.

As for versification, and the metric one, no rule is imposed.

Parker poses five principles which structure the Comedia :

preponderance of the action on the development of the characters.
preponderance of the subject on the action, and the implicit consequence of realistic probability.
the dramatic unit of the subject and not of the action.
the subordination of the subject to a moral intention.
the elucidation of the moral intention by raccroc dramatic.

Comedias allotted to Lope de Vega

Between 1604 and 1647 were published 25 volumes of the Comedias , although the first left without the assent of their author. This last took the things in hand only starting from volume IX (1617) and to volumes XXI and XXII (with its death).

Juan Pérez de Montalbán, disciple of Lope, affirm, in its Fama póstuma , that the Phoenix would have written some: 1800, like 400 car-sacramental, the greatest part would be lost forever.

Lope, more modest, recognizes some: 1500, certainly including its car-sacramental .

Charles Vincent Aubrun estimates that the playwright wrote only one plan of works and composed certain parts of them, leaving it to poets and authors of his workshop to supplement work. Rennert there Castro disputes the figure exaggerated in a study and thinks that one can allot to Lope 723 titles, of which 78 are of doubtful attribution, and 219 titles lost, which would carry today to 426 parts indeed of Lope. Morley there Bruerton, partly following criteria of metric and versification, allots to Lope 316 comedias, 73 would be dubious and 87, commonly allotted to Lope, would not be it.

Major works and of foreground

Of all its officially” allotted works “, are recognized as major works (without removing for all that the scenes of others comedias where still the genius of Lope shines):

Peribáñez there el comendador of Ocaña (1610).
Fuenteovejuna (1612-1614).
rammed It boba (1613).
Amar sin saber has quién (1620-1622).
El mejor alcalde el rey (1620-1623).
El caballero of Olmedo (1620-1625).
the moza of cántaro (1624-1630).
Por the puente, Juana (1624-1630).
El castigo sin venganza (1631).

As well as works of foregrounds:

El perro LED hortelano.
El villano in known rincón.
duque El of Viseo.
Lo fingido verdadero.
the discreta enamorada.
El acero of Madrid.
Los embustes of Celauro.
El sore LED colegio.
El amor enamorado.
Tired bizarrías of Belisa.
the esclava of known galán.
the niña of plata.
El arenal of Sevilla.
Lo cierto por lo dudoso.
the hermosa fea.
Los milagros LED desprecio.
El anzuelo of Fenisa.
El rufián Castrucho.
El halcón of Federico.
the doncella Teodor.
the difunta pleiteada.
the desdichada Estefanía.
El rey gift Pedro in Madrid.

Works by topics

Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, criticism and one of the first editors of the theater of Lope, divide the sets of themes of these works into five large blocks:

the religious Comedias : wills, life of saints and legends pious: creación LED mundo (1631-35), the hermosa Ester (1610), Barlaan Josafat (1611) Was sulky there, El divino africano (1610), on the life of Saint Augustin. San Isidro of Madrid (1604-06), San Diego de Alcalá (1613), and of the sacramental cars like El tirano castigado .
Comedias mythological, ancient and foreign stories: mythologies take as a starting point the Métamorphoses of Ovide. Dramas intended for the Court and the aristocracy. Sometimes even the king, the queen and of noble took part in person in the representations. El vellocino of oro (1620), El laberinto of Creta (1612-15), duque El of Viseo (1608-09), Roma abrasada (1598-1600), duque El gran of Moscovia (1606), the reina Juana de Nápoles (1597-1603).
Comedias of memories and Spanish historical traditions. They are based on the Spanish cultural stereotypes: El villano in known rincón (1614-1616), the campaña of Aragón (1600), Legend of the Campana de Huesca , and history of the reigns of Pedro I of Aragón, Alfonso I el Batallador and Ramiro II el Monje, Castelvines there Monteses (1606-12), used by William Shakespeare for her Romeo and Juliette. In the work of Lope, the lovers always end up marrying.
Comedias of pure fabrication: chivalrous, pastoral, romantic. At the end of the 16th century, in Spain the popular lovesongs appear which find their origin in the Middle Ages and are of oral tradition. El caballero of Olmedo (1622). The pastoral ones imitate the Italian Rebirth and are mainly inspired by the Arcadie of Sannazaro and the eclogues of Juan del Encina and Garcilaso of Vega, the Diana of Jorge de Montemayor, etc, El pastor Fido (1585).
Comedias of manners (urban and palatine manners).

Aubrun prefers to him a division in three broad topics:

Love.
honor.
Faith.

Ruiz Ramon, as for him, speaks about:

Dramas resulting from an unjust capacity (noble/people - people/king - noble king/).
Dramas of honor
Dramas of love.

Bibliography (translated into French)

Lope de Vega, El Acero of Madrid , text established with an introduction and notes by Aline Bergounioux, Jean Lemartinel and Gilbert Zonana, ED. Klincksieck, 1971,172 p.
Lope de Vega, Santiago el Verde , text established with an introduction and notes by Jean Lemartinel, Charles Minguet and Gilbert Zonana, ED. Klincksieck, 1974,200 p.
Lope de Vega, " Fuente Ovejuna" , bilingual edition, text established, presented and translated by Louis Combet, ED. Flammarion, 1992,190 p.
" Spanish theater of the 18th siècle" , T. 1, general introduction by Jean Canavaggio, library of the Pleiad, ED. Gallimard, 1994,1726 p.

This volume contains the following parts of Lope Felix Vega Carpio, presented by Bernard Gille:

the Fair of Madrid ( Tired ferias of Madrid ), text presented, translated and annotated by Pierre Dupont.
Peribañez and the commander of Ocaña , text presented, translated and annotated by Pierre Dupont.
the shoed Water of Madrid ( El Acero of Madrid ), text presented and annotated by Nadine Ly, translated by Patrice Catch and Nadine Ly.
Adultery forgiven ( adulterated It perdonada ), text presented, translated and annotated by Michel Garcia.
Fuente Ovejuna , text presented, translated and annotated by Pierre Dupont.
Mudarra Bastard the ( El bastardo Mudarra ), text presented, translated and annotated by Pierre Blasco.
Small Niaise ( rammed It boba ), text presented, translated and annotated by André Nougué and Robert Marrast.
the Dog of the gardener ( El Perro LED hortelano ), text presented, translated and annotated by Frederic Serralta.
the Peasant in his corner ( El Villano in known rincon ), text presented, translated and annotated by Jean Tested.
the best mayor is the king ( El mejor alcalde, el Rey ), text presented, translated and annotated by Jean Testas.
the most constant Husband, Orphée ( El marido farmhouse firm, Orfeo ), text presented, translated and annotated by Jean-Pierre Ressot.
the Knight of Olmedo ( El caballero of Olmedo ), text presented, translated and annotated by Jean Tested.
the Punishment without revenge ( El castigo sin venganza ), text presented, translated and annotated by Robert Marrast.
Star of Seville ( Estrella de Sevilla - whose attribution with Lope de Vega is called today into question), text presented, translated and annotated by Bernard Gille.

Random links: