Lope de Vega - Work

Work

A rapid survey of Lope's nondramatic works can begin with those published in Spain under the title Obras Sueltas (Madrid, 21 vols., 1776–79). The more important elements of this collection include the following:

• La Arcadia (1598), a pastoral romance, is one of the poet's most wearisome productions;
• La Dragontea (1598) is a fantastic history in verse of Sir Francis Drake's last expedition and death;
• El Isidro (1599) is a narrative of the life of Saint Isidore, patron saint of Madrid, composed in octosyllabic quintillas;
• La Hermosura de Angélica (1602), in three books, is a sort of continuation of Ariosto's Orlando Furioso.

Lope de Vega is one of the greatest Spanish poets of his time, along with Luis de Góngora and Francisco de Quevedo. In the 1580s and 1590s his poems of moorish and pastoral themes were extremely popular, in part because Lope —who appears in these poems as a moor called Zaide or a shepherd called Belardo— portrayed elements of his own love affairs. In 1602 he published two hundred sonnets with his La Hermosura de Angélica and in 1604 he republished them with new material in his Rimas. In 1614 his religious sonnets appeared in a book entitled Rimas sacras, which was another huge bestseller. Finally, in 1634 a third book of similar name, Rimas humanas y divinas del licenciado Tomé de Burguillos, which has been considered his masterpiece as a poet and the most modern poem book of the 17th century: Lope created a heteronym, Tomé de Burguillos, a poor scholar who is in love with a maid called Juana and who observes society from a cynical and disillusional position.