Lope de Vega, Poet of the Holy Sacrament

Abstract

In this work I survey all information concerning Lope de Vega’s participation in both congregations of Slaves of the Blessed Sacrament founded in Madrid in 1608, after some news were spread of alleged vexations to the Sacrament of the Altar in England. At the same time, I provide an inventory of all of Lope’s poems devoted to the Eucharist, and of those conceivably produced for activities of both congregations, studying the circumstances of writing when possible. In this analysis, the political aspect that this particular devotion had for the author is highlighted through its poetic expression (specially in the context of the conflicts between Spain and England): from some poems presented to competitions at the end of the 16th Century and beginning of the 17th, to the major poems of his older years, mainly the Triunfos divinos and the Corona trágica.