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Or if they have read a few of the best Spanish novels in French or English versions, they may not have found them very interesting. This is explained, I take it, by the fact that Spanish literature is essentially national, and if you do not know the Spanish people you can not fully understand their literature. This is largely true of all literatures, but it is especially true of the Spanish.

It too is one of the few plays of the poet which have continued down to recent times in the favor of the Spanish theater-going public, perhaps in the end the most trustworthy critic.

He wrote also many ballads, not a few of which have been preserved, and we know that, at the time of his banishment, he was perhaps the most popular poet of the day.

The first few years of the period saw the appearance of La Dragontea, an epic poem on Sir Francis Drake, and Isidro, a long narrative poem on the life and achievements of San Isidro, patron of Madrid.

Written in Lope's more mature years, at the time of his greatest activity, and probably corrected or rewritten seven years later, this play contains few of the inaccuracies and obscure passages so common to many of his works, reveals to us much of interest in Spanish daily life and in a way reflects the condition of the Spanish capital during the reign of Philip IV, which certainly was one of the most brilliant in the history of the kingdom.

Perhaps his very object in these compositions drew Lope away from the culture and urbanity which distinguish him in others; but fortunately they are few. Let us mention as examples El rufian Castrucho, La Moza de Cántaro, El sabio en su casa, La doncella Teodor."