Lope de Vega

Lope Félix de Vega Carpio (b. 1562–d. 1635) is one of Spain’s most celebrated and prolific writers. As a native and nearly lifelong resident of Madrid, he positioned himself at the very center of Imperial Spain’s cultural production. Spanish literati, in turn, acknowledged Lope de Vega’s prowess through a variety of epithets, which included Fénix de los ingenios (Phoenix of all creative geniuses), for his unique ability to stand out in a large field of true prodigies, and Monstruo de naturaleza (Wonder of nature), ostensibly for the sheer volume of his literary output. At times Lope felt ambivalent about writing for the theater; however, during his long literary career, he penned hundreds of polymetric plays (some four hundred extant), whose success on stage brought him fame and a relatively stable income. In addition to his accomplishments as a playwright, Lope was astonishingly productive in the other genres he cultivated, including lyric and epic poetry, pastoral novel, and short fiction. Over time, Lope’s notoriety and the accumulation of play titles (including hundreds of works spuriously attributed to him) have contributed to the popular misconception that he was sole founder of Spain’s national theater. In point of fact, numerous playwrights were responsible for the gradual emergence of an innovative dramatic formula, the comedia nueva (new drama/comedy), whose precepts Lope codified in a manifesto. His distinguished reputation as a dramatist is, nevertheless, indisputable. Today only two contemporaries—Tirso de Molina (b. 1579–d. 1648) and Pedro Calderón de la Barca (b. 1600–d. 1681)—are consistently elevated to Lope’s stature, especially in reference to the innovative three-act structure that became synonymous with the comedia nueva. Dozens of Lope’s plays continue to appeal to modern-day readers and playgoers, owing, in part, to his creation of a world in which performance and identity are frequently and often refreshingly at odds, and to the poet’s seemingly effortless ability to tell a good story in rhyming verse. Similarly, several books of Lope’s poetry and prose fiction are deeply admired, receiving both popular and scholarly attention. This article introduces readers to General Overviews, Reference Works, Texts and Commentaries, English Translations, Bibliographies, Biographies and Letters, Journals and Conference Proceedings, Criticism, and Lope’s location in Popular Culture. Therefore, the annotated bibliography presented here is selective, not comprehensive, as it is intended to guide preliminary research on this icon of Spain’s cultural production and very identity, both past and present.

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