Vega, Lope de, in full Lope F�lix de Vega Carpio 1562-1635
Spanish dramatist and poet

Born in Madrid, he was a student and graduate of Alcal�. He served in the Portuguese campaign of 1580, and in the Spanish Armada (1588). He became secretary to the Duke of Alva, Marquis of Malpica, and Marquis of Sarria. He took orders in 1614 and became an officer of the Inquisition. His first notable work was the poem Angelica (1602) written at sea in 1588, but it was as a ballad writer that he made his mark. The more remarkable of his miscellaneous works are the Rimas (1604); Peregrino en su Patria (1604, Eng trans The Pilgrim of Casteele, 1621), a romance; Pastores de Bel�n (1612), a religious pastoral; Filomena (1621) and Circe (1624), miscellanies in the style of Cervantes; Corona Tr�gica (1627, 'Tragic Crown'), an epic on Mary, Queen of Scots; and Rimas de Tom� de Burguillos (1634), a collection of lighter verse. He wrote about 2,000 historical and contemporary plays and dramas. Included in the 480 or 500 that have survived are Noche de San Juan ('The Night of St John'), the Maestro de Danzar, and El acero de Madrid, the source of Moli�re's Le M�decin malgr� lui.

Bibliography: F C Hayes, Lope de Vega Carpio (1967)