Casa Museo Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega’s monumental body of work is not limited to theater. The author, in addition to plays, wrote novels and short novels, non-lyric poems (narrative, descriptive, burlesque, mythological and pedagogical or critical poems) and lyric works  (Rimas sacras and Rimas humanas, eclogues and epistles, in addition to songs and musical lyric work).

Novels

La Arcadia (1598).- The first extensive work published by Lope, this is a pastoral novel written in 1592.
Los pastores de Belén (1611).- Pastoral novel written in 1610, and published the following year. Dedicated to his son Carlos.
El peregrino en su patria (1604).- Adventure novel.
Novelas a Marcia Leonarda.- Encouraged by his beloved Marta de Nevares, he published four brief stories: La fortuna de Diana, La desdicha por la honra, La prudente venganza and Guzmán el Bueno.
La Dorotea (1632).- Lope defined this text as prose in action, not a performable work. It is one of his most important works, and is autobiographical.

Collection of Letters

Collection of letter (various dates).- This is thanks to the Duke of Sessa who saved the letters written by Lope de Vega, and not only those that were written to the Duke, but many more. This is a very valuable collection that lets us understand the conflicts in the poet’s life, in addition to the love affairs, an especially prominent theme in his collection of letters.

Non-lyric poems

Narrative poetry

La Dragontea (1598).- Epic poem in Sicilian octave that praises the adventures of the English pirate Sir Francis Drake.
El Isidro (1599).- Poem that glorifies the life of San Isidro, patron saint of Madrid.
La hermosura de Angélica (1602).-Epic poem in twenty cantos in octaves.
La Jerusalem conquistada (1602).- Extensive poem in twenty books that poetically chronicles the events from Spain’s history referred to as the Crusades.
La corona trágica (1627).- Poem meant to be sung about the life of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scotland.

Descriptive poems

La mañana de San Juan (1624).- A 112 octave poem which describes the festival of San Juan on the banks of the Manzanares River in a traditional and popular way.
Las fiestas de Denia y La descripción de la Tapada.- This depicts the Duke of Braganza’s estate using a rich, exuberant, vocabulary to describe the enormous number of names for the flowers, fruits, trees and shrubs listed.

Burlesque poems

La gatomaquia (1634).- This great burlesque poem, published in Rimas humanas y divinas under the pseudonym Tomé de Burguillos, is written in silva (medieval verse form) and has been defined as an ‘epic-ironic poem’ or ‘heroic-comic’.
 
Mythological poems

La Filomena y La Andrómeda (1621).- In the second part of La Filomena, he defends himself from the libel the Spongia, in which he had been attacked.
La Circe and La rosa blanca (1624).- La Circe is inspired by Ulysses’ return. It is written in Sicilian octaves. La rosa blanca, also written in Sicilian octaves, pays tribute to the daughter of the Count-duke de Olivares.

Pedagogical / critical poems

El arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (1609).- This is one of Lope de Vega’s most important texts, as it contains postulates about his way of writing drama.
Isagoge a los reales estudios de la Compañía de Jesús (1629).- Written to be read at the opening of the new building for the Imperial School of the Compañía de Jesús in Madrid.
El laurel de Apolo (1630).- In this text, at the height of his career, as a type of ‘anthology,’ he reviews the poets of the time, his contemporaries, making this a useful catalog.

The lyric

Alonso Zamora Vicente: “Where do we find a lyric characteristic in Lope’s work? We have been following him step by step, seeing how, at the smallest possible crack, he slips in, wholeheartedly, with a delicious, healthy shamelessness, his privacy. We see how, in the most unexpected situations, he invades us with vivid, clean, terse, always new and always surprising emotion. Where to go to find the Lope’s specific lyric production? It appears everywhere, generously used throughout all of his theatrical works and his prose.”

Rimas humanas (1602).- This is a collection of two hundred sonnets that Lope published when he was forty years old. Many of these verses pertain to his plays, to moments when the characters are alone and reflect upon things.
Rimas sacras (1614).- Twelve years after the previous, Lope published a hundred sonnets, to which he added romances dedicated to religion, the passion of Christ and other sacred themes.
Rimas humanas y divinas (1680).- At the age of 72, under the pseudonym Tomé de Burguillos, Lope published these rhymes. In them he remembers his youth and does so with “freshness,” which is interesting given that he was well advanced in years.

Words to sing or musical lyric poetry

Romances, traditional villancicos (carols), seguidillas (flamenco song and dance), coplas (traditional folk songs), cantares de seiga (harvest songs), serranas (bucolic verses), tréboles (type of traditional music)…. Lope’s tremendous knowledge of the every-man´s life, of the trades, festivals and traditional music, makes its way into his plays and lyric work. It is also present in the original songs of all of his theatrical creations.

Epistles

These are letters, compositions in epistle form, included in La Filomena or in La Circe, which offer Lope’s view on his personal life, information about his literary enemies, the poet’s loves and heartbreaks… Among them, the one that begins “Serrana Hermosa…” stands out, possibly written in 1602, in Toledo for ‘Camila Lucinda’ (Micaela de Luján). Today the texts of the epistles are considered more interesting from a historiographic point of view than literary.

Eclogues

Amarilis.- This is the most important of his eclogues. Here he talks about his love for Marta de Nevares, after her death.
Égloga Elisio.- This is really a song with very intense verses.
Égloga a Claudio.- In this piece, Lope remembers various episodes of his life: his loves with Elena Osorio, how they took him to jail, his first marriage, his relationships with the theater as a writer and a poet of plays...
Égloga Filis (1635).- Lope tells about how his daughter Antonia Clara abandons home and runs away with a man, and the grief this causes him.

A Play writing machine.

Lope's enormous body of work

Juan Pérez de Montalbán, friend and disciple of the poet, is the author of the first biography written about Lope. En Fama póstuma, the author confirms that Lope de Vega wrote 1,800 plays and 400 sacramentales. The poet himself was more restrained and calculated around 1,500 plays, in which the experts believe he included the autos sacramentales (Spanish allegorical plays) and other works. Any way you look at it, it is an extraordinary number of works that has made cataloging and the critical edition of his complete works very difficult.

Cayetano Alberto de la Barrera y Leirado completed the first cataloging of Lope’s works in his Catálogo bibliográfico y biográfico del teatro antiguo español, desde sus orígenes hasta mediados del siglo XVIII (Madrid, 1860). The scholar wrote the Nueva biografía de Lope de Vega, which appeared within the great edition of the Academia de las obras de Lope de Vega. A publication directed by Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, responsible for the first classification of Lope’s work, prefaced but not noted.

In 1919, Hugo Rennet, Spanish scholar from Philadelphia, and Américo Castro completed a meticulous study of Lope’s work. In it, they reduced the number of comedies to 426 and concluded that of Lope’s dramatic repertoire, 723 titles could be attributed to him, of which 219 had been lost and 78 were of dubious authorship.

Another American scholar of Spanish studies, Courtney Bruerton, and the expert on Lope, Silvanus Grisworld Morley, published in 1940 Chronology of Lope de Vega's Comedies: With a Discussion of Doubtful Attributions, the Whole Based on a Study of His Strophic Versification (New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1940). This work, which uses metric criteria, establishes a sure chronology of Lope’s plays. The authors speak of 316 comedies of that were undoubtedly written by Lope, 73 they qualify as dubious and 87 tend to be attributed to Lope but they are not his.

Lope, author and printer

Lope de Vega’s literary work is the most extensive of the Golden Age, with more than a thousand titles. His plays alone –compiled by Bernardo Grassa— fill 25 volumes. The publisher Angelo Tavanno set the number of plays for each parte (part) at twelve.

In the different editions that appear in the eight first Partes, there were many falsifications, unauthorized publications, unsigned plays, works by other authors…. This was thanks to the fact that despite the high percentage of illiteracy, the printed plays were a success. To be a printer or bookseller in the Golden Age was a good business.

“Viendo imprimir cada día mis comedias de suerte que era imposible llamarlas mías, y que en los pleitos de esta defensa siempre me condenaban los que tenían más solicitud y dicha para seguirlos, me he resuelto a imprimirlas por mis originales; que aunque es verdad que no las escribí con este ánimo, ni para que de los oídos del teatro se trasladaran a la censura de los aposentos, ya lo tengo por mejor que ver la crueldad con que despedazan mi opinión algunos intereses. Éste será el primer tomo, que comienza por esta novena parte, y así irán prosiguiendo los demás”, wrote the poet himself in Parte IX. Up until then, Lope had fought in the courts but had lost, so had decided to fight for the exclusive to publish, which he achieved in 1617. He then published Parte IX to Parte XX. His son-in-law, Luis de Usátegui, continued the task up until Parte XXV.

In the edition of the Parte veinte de las comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio (Madrid, Widow of Alonso Martín, as told by Alonso Pérez, in 1625), Lope wrote: “(…) V.m. señor lector se entretenga con estas Comedias lo mejor que pueda, hasta la parte veintiuna, si no es de aquellos retorcidos que miran el mundo en el mapa y así le juzgan breve, que bien sé que los ingenios cándidos desearán que como tuve vida para escribir mil y setenta Comedias la tenga para imprimirlas”.

Nevertheless, the mentioned Parte XXI, took a long time to appear, since from 1625 until the end of 1634, the Council of Castile had suspended the concession of licenses for printing plays and novels. This did not affect the Crown of Aragon nor the publishers in Andalusia who began printing unauthorized editions of Lope de Vega’s plays, many of them mixed with works by other authors. When the suspension was lifted, Lope had the exclusive for the edition of three partes, XXI, XXII and a third. Upon his death, the poet left the print shop to publish Partes XXI and XXII.

The manuscripts of Lope´s plays are preserved in the National Library of Spain, in the Royal Library of Madrid and in the Library of Parma, London, the United States and Vienna. Many of those manuscripts are in the author’s hand.

Creator of a new theater

The rules for plays of the time were very clear; they must rigorously follow units of place, time and action. The poet had learned all of this, although it appears he only approached the rules in order to break them. As the creator of a new type of play, we owe to him that in the theater there was space for both tragedies and comedies, and  nobles and commoners. It was Lope who placed aesthetic emotion, beauty, entertainment and the spectator’s interest at the forefront, thus opening the doors to a different type of theater that soon became a social phenomenon on a national scale. He explained all of this, not without a bit of irony, in Arte nuevo de hacer comedias.

Lope had a tremendous influence on Western theater and his works, although only translated into Italian during his lifetime, were very widely disseminated later, becoming the object of numerous studies, especially in the United States and Italy.

Lope, unclassifiable

The world is full of “Lopistas” who continue to battle with the colossal work of the poet in terms of organizing, classifying and arranging it into groups…
One of the men who has best studied Lope de Vega, Alonso Zamora Vicente, wrote:
 “(…) From a chronological order of their creation… we know when only a hundred or so of his plays were written…. Grouping them according to style, action, characters… is also not possible. Lope is eternally known precisely for that whirlwind of combining and crowding things together, with no marked transition or borders. We can also not make a rough religious secular-social or national division. Because for the same reason we just mentioned, Lope resolves a religious situation with a type of street scene and well developed intrigue, and on the other side: a war scene, heroic, can be performed as a devout retreat.”

Faced with so many obstacles and bearing in mind that Lope reflected the reality of the Spain of the times, perhaps the best idea would be to follow Menéndez Pelayo’s opinion and create an approximation of the work by topics.

Menéndez Pelayo classified Lope’s work as:

1. Autos and colloquiums
2. Plays pertaining to the Holy Scripture
3. Plays about the life of the saints
4. Pastoral plays
5. Mythological plays
6. Plays about plots from ancient history
7. Plays about foreign history
8. Dramatic chronicles and legends of Spain
9. Plays about the fantastic

Títulos de las comedias

1. ¡Ay, verdades, que en amor...!

2. ¡Si no vieran las mujeres!

3. ¿De cuando acá nos vino?

4. Adonis y Venus

5. Al pasar del arroyo

6. Amar sin saber a quién

7. Amar, servir y esperar

8. Amor con vista

9. Amor secreto hasta celos

10. Amor, pleito y desafío

11. Angélica en el Catay

12. Barlaán y Josafat

13. Belardo el Furioso

14. Carlos el perseguido

15. Carlos V en Francia

16. Castelvines y Monteses

17. Con su pan se lo coma

18. De cosario a cosario

19. Del mal lo menos

20. Del monte sale quien el monte quema

21. Dios hace reyes

22. Don Juan de Castro I

23. Don Juan de Castro II

24. Don Lope de Cardona

25. Dos estrellas trocadas

26. El abanillo

27. El acero de Madrid

28. El alcaide de Madrid

29. El alcalde mayor

30. El amante agradecido

31. El amigo hasta la muerte

32. El amigo por fuerza

33. El amor desatinado

34. El amor enamorado

35. El animal de Hungría

36. El anzuelo de Fenisa

37. El Arauco domado

38. El arenal de Sevilla

39. El Argel fingido

40. El asalto de Mastrique

41. El ausente en el lugar

42. El bastardo Mudarra

43. El blasón de los Chaves de Villalba

44. El bobo del colegio

45. El Brasil restituido

46. El caballero de Illescas

47. El caballero de Olmedo

48. El caballero del milagro

49. El caballero del Sacramento

50. El capellán de la Virgen

51. El cardenal de Belén

52. El casamiento en la muerte

53. El castigo del discreto

54. El castigo sin venganza

55. El cerco de Santa Fe

56. El conde Fernán González

57. El cuerdo en su casa

58. El cuerdo loco

59. El desconfiado

60. El desdén vengado

61. El despertar a quien duerme

62. El desposorio encubierto

63. El desprecio agradecido

64. El divino africano

65. El dómine Lucas

66. El duque de Viseo

67. El ejemplo de casadas

68. El enemigo engañado

69. El esclavo de Roma

70. El favor agradecido

71. El galán de la membrilla

72. El galán escarmentado

73. El gallardo catalán

74. El ganso de oro

75. El genovés liberal

76. El gran duque de Moscovia

77. El Grao de Valencia

78. El guante de doña Blanca

79. El halcón de Federico

80. El hamete de Toledo

81. El hidalgo Bencerraje

82. El hijo de los leones

83. El hijo de Reduán

84. El hijo sin padre

85. El hijo venturoso

86. El hombre de bien

87. El hombre por su palabra

88. El honrado hermano

89. El ingrato arrepentido

90. El juez en su causa

91. El laberinto de Creta

92. El labrador venturoso

93. El lacayo fingido

94. El leal criado

95. El llegar en ocasión

96. El maestro de danzar

97. El marido más firme

98. El mármol de Felisardo

99. El Marqués de las Navas

100. El Marqués de Mantua

101. El más galán portugués

102. El mayor imposible

103. El mayorazgo dudoso

104. El mayordomo de la duquesa de Amalfi

105. El mejor alcalde, el rey

106. El mejor maestro, el tiempo

107. El mejor mozo de España

108. El mesón de la Corte

109. El molino

110. El nacimiento de Ursón y Valentín

111. El negro del mejor amo

112. El niño inocente de La Guardia

113. El Nuevo Mundo descubierto por Cristóbal Colón

114. El padrino desposado

115. El perro del hortelano

116. El piadoso aragonés

117. El piadoso valenciano

118. El poder en el discreto

119. El poder vencido

120. El postrer godo de España

121. El premio de la hermosura

122. El premio del bien hablar

123. El primer Fajardo

124. El primer rey de Castilla

125. El príncipe despeñado

126. El príncipe inocente

127. El príncipe melancólico

128. El príncipe perfecto I

129. El príncipe perfecto II

130. El remedio en la desdicha

131. El rey sin reino

132. El rufián Castrucho

133. El ruiseñor de Sevilla

134. El rústico del cielo

135. El santo negro Rosambuco

136. El secretario de sí mismo

137. El sembrar en buena tierra

138. El Serafín humano

139. El servir a señor discreto

140. El servir con mala estrella

141. El sol parado

142. El soldado amante

143. El testigo contra sí

144. El testimonio vengado

145. El tirano castigado

146. El triunfo de la humildad y soberbia vencida

147. El valeroso catalán (Pedro Carbonero)

148. El valiente Céspedes

149. El valor de las mujeres

150. El vaquero de Moraña

151. El vellocino de oro

152. El verdadero amante

153. El villano en su rincón

154. Ello dirá

155. Fuenteovejuna

156. Jorge Toledano

157. Juan de Dios

158. La Arcadia

159. La batalla del honor

160. La bella Aurora

161. La bella malmaridada

162. La boba para los otros y discreta para sí

163. La boda entre dos maridos

164. La buena guarda

165. La burgalesa de Lerma

166. La campana de Aragón

167. La carbonera

168. La condesa Matilde

169. La contienda de García

170. La corona de Hungría

171. La corona merecida

172. La cortesía de España

173. La dama boba

174. La desdichada Estefanía

175. La discordia en los casados

176. La discreta enamorada

177. La discreta venganza

178. La divina vencedora

179. La doncella Teodor

180. La envidia de la nobleza

181. La escolástica celosa

182. La fábula de Perseo

183. La fe rompida

184. La Felisarda

185. La firmeza en la desdicha

186. La fortuna merecida

187. La francesilla

188. La fuerza lastimosa

189. La gallarda toledana

190. La hermosa Alfreda

191. La hermosa Ester

192. La hermosura aborrecida

193. La historia de Tobías

194. La humildad y la soberbia

195. La imperial de Otón

196. La infanta desesperada

197. La ingratitud vengada

198. La inocente Laura

199. La inocente sangre

200. La juventud de San Isidro

201. La limpieza no manchada

202. La locura por la honra

203. La madre de la mejor

204. La mal casada

205. La mayor victoria

206. La mayor virtud de un rey

207. La mocedad de Roldán

208. La montañesa / La amistad pagada

209. La moza de cántaro

210. La niña de plata

211. La niñez de San Isidro

212. La niñez del padre Rojas

213. La noche de San Juan

214. La noche toledana

215. La nueva victoria de don Gonzalo de Córdoba

216. La nueva victoria del Marqués de Santa Cruz

217. La obediencia laureada

218. La ocasión perdida

219. La octava maravilla

220. La pastoral de Jacinto

221. La piedad ejecutada

222. La pobreza estimada

223. La portuguesa

224. La primera información

225. La prisión sin culpa

226. La prueba de los amigos

227. La prueba de los ingenios

228. La quinta de Florencia

229. La reina Juana de Nápoles

230. La resistencia honrada

231. La Santa Liga

232. La serrana de la Vera

233. La serrana de Tormes

234. La sortija del olvido

235. La suerte de los reyes

236. La tragedia del rey Don Sebastián de Portugal

237. La traición bien acertada

238. La varona castellana

239. La vengadora de las mujeres

240. La venganza venturosa

241. La ventura sin buscalla

242. La victoria de la honra

243. La vida de San Pedro Nolasco

244. La vida y muerte del rey Bamba

245. La villana de Getafe

246. La viuda valenciana

247. Las almenas de Toro

248. Las Batuecas del duque de Alba

249. Las bizarrías de Belisa

250. Las burlas de amor

251. Las famosas asturianas

252. Las ferias de Madrid

253. Las flores de Don Juan

254. Las grandezas de Alejandro

255. Las Justas de Tebas

256. Las mudanzas de Fortuna

257. Las mujeres sin hombres

258. Las paces de los reyes

259. Las pobrezas de Reinaldos

260. Laura perseguida

261. Lo cierto por lo dudoso

262. Lo fingido verdadero

263. Lo que ha de ser

264. Lo que hay que fiar del mundo

265. Lo que pasa en una tarde

266. Los amantes sin amor

267. Los amores de Albanio e Ismenia

268. Los bandos de Sena

269. Los Benavides / El primero Benavides

270. Los celos de Rodamonte

271. Los comendadores de Córdoba

272. Los donaires de Matico

273. Los embustes de Celauro

274. Los embustes de Fabia

275. Los enemigos en casa

276. Los esclavos libres

277. Los españoles en Flandes

278. Los guanches de Tenerife

279. Los hechos de Garcilaso de la Vega

280. Los hidalgos de la aldea

281. Los locos de Valencia

282. Los locos por el cielo

283. Los melindres de Belisa

284. Los muertos vivos

285. Los palacios de Galiana

286. Los pleitos de Inglaterra

287. Los Ponces de Barcelona

288. Los Porceles de Murcia

289. Los prados de León

290. Los ramilletes de Madrid

291. Los Ramírez de Arellano

292. Los Tellos de Meneses I

293. Los torneos de Aragón

294. Los trabajos de Jacob

295. Los tres diamantes

296. Lucinda perseguida

297. Más pueden celos que amor

298. Mirad a quién alabáis

299. Nadie se conoce

300. No son todos ruiseñores

301. Obras son amores

302. Pedro Carbonero, el cordobés valeroso

303. Peribáñez

304. Pobreza no es vileza

305. Por la puente, Juana

306. Porfiando vence amor

307. Quien ama, no haga fieros

308. Quien más no puede

309. Quien todo lo quiere

310. Roma abrasada

311. San Diego de Alcalá

312. San Isidro Labrador de Madrid

313. San Nicolás de Tolentino

314. San Segundo de Ávila

315. Santiago el Verde

316. Sin secreto no hay amor

317. Virtud, pobreza y mujer

318. Viuda, casada y doncella

And as of January 2014, we must add Mujeres y Criados (1613-1614), as a manuscript copy was found in the National Library of Spain. This piece had been lost according to the literary catalogs. It was discovered by the researcher Alejandro García Reidy, Professor at Syracuse University and member of the Prolope team at the Autónoma University of Barcelona.