Lope de Vega’s El amigo hasta la muerte and Miguel de Cervantes’ El gallardo español: Between Intertextuality and Autobiographical Projection

Abstract

Lope de Vega’s El amigo hasta la muerte seems to be earlier than the date indicated by Morley and Bruerton (1606-1612) because it reveals a certain number of obscure allusions to the relationship between its author and Cervantes, at the time when their friendship hadn’t become yet a literary war, which is before the publication of the first part of Quijote. Besides this, starting from the use of certain names and the elaboration of the two friends theme, it shows parallelisms and intertextual echos related to Cervantes’ El gallardo español, a play that could perfectly be the paradigm that for mysterious reasons the young Lope used in order to write a personal and literary tribute to his friends from Alcalá.