Leyendo a Quevedo: Lope

Abstract

103

For some thirty years, Lope de Vega was unrivaled on the theater stage, until he was finally eclipsed by Calderón de la Barca. In his Novelas a Marcia Leonarda, written at the behest of his love interest. Lope’s prose style proved itself a poor substitute for Cervantes’ Novelas ejemplares. As a lyrical poet, he is often classified between his foe (Góngora) and his friend (Quevedo), and while he excelled as a epic poet, a genre which he cultivated in La Dragontea (1598), La hermosura de Angélica (1602), Jerusalén conquistada (1609) and in La corona trágica (1630), he was overshadowed by the works of Ariosto, Tasso, Camoens and Alonso de Ercilla. Although his lyric shares many affinities with Quevedo’s, several divergences emerge. Lope’s output is marked by its autobiographical and religious nature; Quevedo’s by the sentimental yet unapologetic style of its critique. Despite the nuances in their style and subject matter, both men shared a mutual and lasting admiration for the other, and his work.

Keywords

Lope as prose writer, as epic poet, as reader of Quevedo’s lyrical work, similarities and differences between their work