Introduction: Lope's Life and Work
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2022
Summary
Pocas obras hay en ninguna literatura más personales que la de este genial romántico. Al margen de cada uno de estos tremendos episodios de su vida crece frondosa la poesía, índice de sus emociones, y aquí más que nunca «fermosa cobertura” de las frivolidades de aquel para quien todos los sentimientos eran familiares, salvo el de la responsabilidad moral de sus propios actos. La vida de Lope pendía de su impulsivo y anárquico temperamento. Pero seamos indulgentes: tal vez nadie, en la historia de las literaturas, ha sabido dejar tras de cada acción liviana una tan brillante e inmaculada estela de belleza.
[There are few works in any literature more personal than those of this outstanding romantic. In the margins of each of those momentous episodes of his life poetry grows luxuriantly, an index of his emotions, and here more than ever it is ‘the beautiful covering’ of the frivolities of the man for whom all feelings were familiar, except that of moral responsibility for his own actions. The life of Lope hung from his impulsive and anarchic temperament. But, let us be indulgent: perhaps no-one, in the history of literature, has managed to leave behind each fickle action a wake of such shining and immaculate beauty.]
Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (1562–1635) was perhaps the most extraordinary writer to leave his mark on early modern Spain, the period that Spaniards have designated their artistic Golden Age. Beyond Spanish borders it tends to be Cervantes who possesses the highest cultural capital for his role in the creation of the novel; Velázquez is the painters’ painter; Quevedo and Góngora are admired for their poetic brilliance; and only Calderón's theatre is typically assumed to come close to the power and philosophical reach of Shakespeare’s. Within Spain Lope is better known, of course, but it is probably true to say that his popular renown stems in roughly equal measure from his exceptional productivity and his eventful life. The ‘Lope myth’ which has grown up around him presents the man as a flawed character possessed of a unique genius.
Artistically, Lope is best known as a playwright, indeed as the creator of a national drama usually called the comedia nueva.
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- A Companion to Lope de Vega , pp. 1 - 12Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021
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