Lope de Vega’s Presence in «El Ministerio del Tiempo»

Abstract

Lope de Vega has recently appeared on the small screen as a recurring character in the TVE series El Ministerio del Tiempo (‘The Ministry of Time’). We have been offered a renovated perspective on Lope de Vega as a human being, distancing ourselves from the purely eulogistic position inherited from his 19th and early 20th-century biographers. The series has attempted to reevaluate what the life and work of one of the greatest Golden Age playwrights might mean for modern day spectators, seen from the perspective of popular culture and fiction. This article proposes to examine the three episodes in which Lope appears («Tiempo de gloria» from the first season, «Tiempo de hidalgos» from the second, and «Tiempo de esplendor» from the third) to understand what the series is suggesting about the relationship between Golden Age literature and the contemporary reality of the televisual audience. The series speaks of the distance between the average citizen and the classics, where the contemporary characters (Julian and Pacino) express their ignorance (and suspicion) of literature. In addition, I interview the creator of the series, Javier Olivares, on how the episodes use popular culture and fantasy elements to inspire a reevaluation of classical Spanish literature and analyse to what extent El Ministerio del Tiempo manages to build a bridge between the literature of the Golden Age and the present.