Lope De Vega: 1562–1635

Abstract

Lope Felix De Vega Carpio was born at Madrid in 1562, and died there on August 27, 1635. The poet's long life embraced the reigns of the three Philips, glorious years in Spanish history. Spaniards boasted that the sun never set upon their vast empire, which included (1580-1640) the whole of the Peninsula, the two Sicilies, the Milanese, the Low Countries, Franche-Comte, Mexico, Peru, and Portuguese possessions in Asia. Economic decline had begun but had not yet brought bankruptcy and decadence. The silver which poured in to Spain affected the economic condition of the country adversely and there were signs on every hand of extreme poverty, but outward splendour and national optimism remained. About the middle of the sixteenth century there appeared a prose masterpiece, Lazarillo de Tormes, aptly called an epic of hunger. Among types depicted in this picaresque novel, is that of an impoverished gentleman or hidalgo who comes to the capital to seek honourable employment in the church, the fleet, or the royal palace, as the formula ran. He is penniless but too proud to work. For days he has not a bite to eat, but blames the location of his lodgings for his misery.