United States or Norfolk Island ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
But to those who wish to study in these stories the growth of contemporary Spanish fiction, it is suggested that the authors be taken up in the order in which they are given in the Introduction. To the stories by Spanish authors have been added two by Spanish-American writers, the one a native of Costa Rica, the other of Chile. These stories are excellent and well worth reading.
Of his childhood and early youth we have no definite knowledge, but it appears that his parents died when he was very young and that he lived some time with his uncle, Don Miguel del Carpio. From his own utterances and those of his friend and biographer, Montalvan, we know that genius developed early with him and that he dictated verses to his schoolmates before he was able to write.
Fernán Caballero was probably influenced by the Escenas andaluzas, the Escenas matritenses and Larra's essays on manners; and it is quite possible that from her German friends came to her some of the modern spirit of scientific investigation that led her to declare the novel to be "not the product of invention, but of observation."
The text has been taken completely, without any omissions or modifications, from the Hartzenbusch collection of Comedias Escogidas de Lope de Vega published in the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles and, where it varies from other texts with which it has been compared, the variation is noted.
Zerolo is very emphatic in attributing it to the class of comedias de capa y espada, for he says: "Más que ninguna otra, reune esta obra las circunstancias que caracterizan á las comedias de capa y espada, como embozos, equívocos, etc."
He was thereafter its literary lion, whose very appearance in the streets furnished an occasion for tumultuous demonstration of affection. The last decade of the life of Lope de Vega saw him seeking no rest or retirement behind the friendly walls of some monastic retreat, but rather was it the most active period of his literary career.
The historical romance has now taken a secondary place in fiction; but it was cultivated till quite recently by so virile and popular a writer as Pérez Galdós.
It is true that several historical events which took place about that year are alluded to in the work in a way to indicate that they were fresh in the mind of the author, but they do not offer conclusive proof. It does not appear in the twenty-five Partes or collections of Lope's dramas, and it is doubtful if it was published in any regular edition during the poet's life.
It is most important for the light it sheds on the early years of his life, for it is largely autobiographical. Another volume, issued from the pen of Lope in 1634 under the title of Rimas del licenciado Tomé de Burguillos, contains the mock-heroic, La Gatomaquia, the highly humorous account of the love of two cats for a third.
Unlike Shakespeare, whose rare good fortune it was to establish a language as well as found a national drama, Lope de Vega took up a language which had been in use and which had served as a medium of literary expression many centuries before he was born, and with it established the Spanish drama. Here again Lope conformed to common usage.
Palabra del Dia
Otros Mirando