Félix Lope De Vega was one of the most important poets and playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age and, by the extent of his work, one of the most prolific authors in world literature.
The so-called Fénix de los ingenios and Monstruo de Naturaleza (by Miguel de Cervantes) renewed the formulas of Spanish theater at a time when theater was beginning to be a mass cultural phenomenon. Maximum exponent, together with Tirso de Molina and Calderón de la Barca, of the Spanish Baroque theater, his works continue to be performed today and constitute one of the highest levels reached in Spanish literature and the arts. He was also one of the great lyrics of the Castilian language and the author of several novels and long narrative works in prose and verse.
Some 3,000 sonnets, three novels, four short novels, nine epics, three didactic poems and several hundred comedies are attributed to him (1800 according to Juan Pérez de Montalbán). Friend of Francisco de Quevedo and Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, estranged from Luis de Góngora and in a long rivalry with Cervantes, his life was as extreme as his work. He was the father of the also playwright Sister Marcela de San Félix. He was born on November 25, 1562 and died on August 27, 1635 in Spain.
Among his most outstanding works are:
The knight of Olmedo (1626)
The Arcadia (1598)
Angelica’s beauty (1602)
The villain in his corner (1611)
The silly lady (1613)
The dog in the manger (1615)
Some of the best phrases of Lope de Vega
“I do not know the reason for the unreason that my reason afflicts.”
“Love has an easy entry and a difficult exit.”
“Jealousy is children of love, but they are bastards, I confess.”
“God save us from falling out with friends.”
“Wine, the older it gets, the hotter it has: contrary to our nature, the longer it lives, the more it gets colder.”
“But with one thing I am happy; that although it may take away my hope, it cannot take away my thought ”.
“We are chess pieces and the crazy world is the table, but pawns and kings walk together in the bag.”
“What counts is not tomorrow, but today. Today we are here, tomorrow perhaps, we will have left ”.
“Virtue, like art, is often close to difficult.”
“Pity who listens, is close to forgiving.”
“There are no words in the world so effective or orators so eloquent as tears.
