Anyone have advice on a good starting point for Lope de Vega? I've been reading Cervantes and Lope seems like a natural progression. But there's no clear place to start and I also get the suspicion that much of his skill is tied to the Spanish language and doesn't translate well.Right now I'm also reading Avellaneda's Quixote, which some people pseudonymously attribute to Lope no less.
>>23542087Learn Spanish, otherwise don't bother. Lope is a poet, therefore cannot be translated. If you read another romance language, maybe it won't lose that much, but to read him in English would be worthless in my opinion, unless the translator is a good as him, which to the best of my knowledge very few English poets, if any, have ever been, none of whom translated Lope.
>>23542173I suspected his poetic style made him hard to translate. What about his plays?
>>23542296His plays are written in verse, so they're poetry too.You can read them for the story or if you find a good translation, but as with all poetry it should be enjoyed in the original.
>>23542501I didn't know verse was a big thing in baroque Spanish theater.Are the stories particularly good? Sometimes he gets called the Spanish Shakespeare, and apparently in modern Spain he's more highly regarded than even Cervantes.
>>23542087Start with Fuenteovejuna, that's his most famous piece.>>23543870Lope de Vega was considered one of the greats in Europe back in the day. His fame has taken a nosedive certainly. I'm reading The Letters of Flaubert and in one letter he's defending Victor Hugo by saying he's "as great as Racine, Calderón or Lope de Vega" like it was the most natural thing to say.
>>23542296He's talking about the plays lol
bump
