Youth Lope de Vega Carpio was born November 1562 in
Madrid, in the Puerta de Guadalajara to a family of natives of the valley of Carriedo. His father, Félix de Vega, was an embroiderer. Little is known of his mother, Francisca Fernández Flores. He later took the distinguished surname of Carpio from his paternal grandmother, Catalina del Carpio. After a brief stay in
Valladolid, his father moved to Madrid in 1561, perhaps drawn by the possibilities of the new capital city. However, Lope de Vega would later affirm that his father arrived in Madrid through a love affair from which his future mother was to rescue him. Thus the writer became the fruit of this reconciliation and owed his existence to the same jealousies he would later analyze so much in his dramatic works. The first indications of young Lope's genius became apparent in his earliest years. His friend and biographer Pérez de Montalbán stated that at the age of five he was already reading Spanish and Latin. While he was still unable to write, he would share his breakfast with the older boys in exchange for their help scribing his verses. By his tenth birthday, he was translating Latin verse. He wrote his first play when he was 12, allegedly
El verdadero amante, as he would later affirm in his dedication of the work to his son Lope, although these statements are most probably exaggerations. His great talent bore him to the school of poet and musician
Vicente Espinel in Madrid, to whom he later always referred with veneration. In his fourteenth year he continued his studies in the
Colegio Imperial, a
Jesuit school in Madrid, from which he absconded to take part in a military expedition in
Portugal. Following that escapade, he had the good fortune of being taken into the protection of the
Bishop of Ávila, who recognized the lad's talent and saw him enrolled in the
University of Alcalá. Following graduation, Lope had planned to follow in his patron's footsteps and join the priesthood, but those plans were dashed by falling in love and realizing that celibacy was not for him. Thus he failed to attain a bachelor's degree and made what living he could as a secretary to aristocrats or by writing plays. In 1583 Lope enlisted in the
Spanish Navy and saw action at the
Battle of Ponta Delgada in the
Azores, under the command of his future friend
Álvaro de Bazán, 1st Marquis of Santa Cruz, to whose son he would later dedicate a play. Following this, he returned to Madrid and began his career as a playwright in earnest. He also began a love affair with Elena Osorio (the "Filis" of his poems), who was separated from her husband, actor
Cristóbal Calderón, and was the daughter of a leading theater director. When, after some five years of this torrid affair, Elena spurned Lope in favor of another suitor, his vitriolic attacks on her and her family landed him in jail for
libel and, ultimately, earned him the punishment of eight years' banishment from the court and two years'
exile from
Castile.
Exile After libelling members of his family in his writing, Lope de Vega undauntedly went into exile. He took with him 16-year-old Isabel de Alderete y Urbina, known in his poems by the
anagram "Belisa," the daughter of
Philip II's court painter,
Diego de Urbina. The two married under pressure from her family on 10 May 1588. Just a few weeks later, on 29 May, Lope signed up for another tour of duty with the Spanish Navy: this was the summer of 1588, and the
Armada was about to sail against
England. It is likely that his military enlistment was the condition required by Isabel's family, eager to be rid of such an ill presentable son-in-law, to forgive him for carrying her away. Lope's luck again served him well, however, and his ship, the
San Juan, was one of the vessels to make it home to Spanish harbors in the aftermath of that failed expedition. Back in Spain by December 1588, he settled in the city of
Valencia. There he lived with Isabel de Urbina and continued perfecting his dramatic formula participating regularly in the
tertulia known as the
Academia de los nocturnos, in the company of such accomplished dramatists as the
canon Francisco Agustín Tárrega, the secretary to the
Duke of Gandía Gaspar de Aguilar,
Guillén de Castro,
Carlos Boyl, and
Ricardo de Turia. With them he refined his approach to theatrical writing by violating the
unity of action and weaving two plots together in a single play, a technique known as
imbroglio. In 1590, at the end of his two years'
exile from the realm, he moved to
Toledo to serve Francisco de Ribera Barroso, who later became the 2nd Marquis of Malpica, and, some time later,
Antonio Álvarez de Toledo, 5th Duke of Alba. In this later appointment he became
gentleman of the bedchamber to the ducal court of the
House of Alba, where he lived from 1592 to 1595. Here he read the work of
Juan del Encina, from whom he improved the character of the
donaire, perfecting still further his dramatic formula. In the fall of 1594, Isabel de Urbina died of
postpartum complications. It was around this time that Lope wrote his
pastoral novel
La Arcadia, which included many poems and was based on the Duke's household in Alba de Tormes.
Return to Castile in
Madrid (1610–1635). In 1595, following Isabel's death in childbirth, he left the Duke's service and – eight years having passed – returned to Madrid. There were other love affairs and other scandals: Antonia Trillo de Armenta, who earned him another lawsuit, and
Micaela de Luján, an illiterate but beautiful actress, who inspired a rich series of
sonnets, rewarded him with four children and was his lover until around 1608. In 1598, he married Juana de Guardo, the daughter of a wealthy butcher. Nevertheless, his trysts with others – including Micaela – continued. In the 17th century Lope's literary output reached its peak. From 1607 he was also employed as a secretary, but not without various additional duties, by the Duke of Sessa. Once that decade was over, however, his personal situation took a turn for the worse. His favorite son, Carlos Félix (by Juana), died and, in 1612, Juana herself died in childbirth. After the heartbreaking loss of his son and wife, Lope summoned his remaining children still alive under the same roof to devote himself to Christianity. His writing in the early 1610s also assumed heavier religious influences and, in 1614, he joined the priesthood. The taking of holy orders did not, however, impede his romantic dalliances; what is more, he supplied his employer the duke with various female companions. The most notable and lasting of Lope's relationships was with Marta de Nevares, who met him in 1616 and would remain with him until her death in 1632. marking de Vega's burial Further tragedies followed in 1635 with the loss of Lope, his son by Micaela and a worthy poet in his own right, in a shipwreck off the coast of
Venezuela, and the abduction and subsequent abandonment of his beloved youngest daughter Antonia. Lope de Vega took to his bed and died of
scarlet fever, in Madrid, on 27 August of that year. He was buried in
St Sebastian's Church, Madrid.
Priesthood The period of life that characterizes priestly ordination of Lope de Vega was one of profound existential crisis, perhaps impelled by the death of close relatives. To this inspiration respond his Sacred Rhymes and the numerous devout works he began to compose, as well as the meditative and philosophical tone that appears in his last verses. On the night of 19 December 1611 the writer was the victim of an assassination attempt from which he could barely escape. Juana de Guardo suffered frequent illnesses and in 1612 Carlos Félix died of fevers. On 13 August the following year Juana de Guardo died while giving birth to Feliciana. So many misfortunes affected Lope emotionally, and on 24 May 1614 he finally decided to be ordained a priest. The literary expression of this crisis and its repentances are the Sacred Rhymes, published in 1614; there it says: "If the body wants to be earth on earth / the soul wants to be heaven in heaven", unredeemed dualism that constitutes all its essence. The Sacred Rhymes constitute a book at the same time introspective in the sonnets (he uses the technique of the spiritual exercises that he learned in his studies with the Jesuits) as devotee for the poems dedicated to diverse saints or inspired in the sacred iconography, then in full deployment thanks to the recommendations emanated from the
Council of Trent. In 1627 he was admitted as a knight of the
Order of Malta. This was an enormous honour for him since he had always taken an interest in orders of chivalry. In 1603 he had published the play
El valor de Malta (The Valour of Malta) about the maritime battles of the Order. In his portrait by
Eugenio Caxés he wears the habit of the Order of Malta. ==Work==