ABSTRACT
A Feeling of weariness and depression at once overtakes the reader on opening the two volumes which Rivadeneyra devotes to Epic Poetry. In the chapter devoted to Lope de Vega’s writings, mention has been made of his Hermosura de Angelica, but four more long poems must be noticed to give some idea of his success in this kind of composition. Lope’s most characteristic epic is his Jerusalen Conquistada for it treats of the unsuccessful expedition under Philip Augustus and Richard Cceur-de-Lion. In his mock epic, the Gatomaquia, Lope avoids the monotony of the eleven-syllable octaves cultivated by almost all Spanish narrative poets, and writing in lines of irregular length is now and then really amusing and brilliant. The language of the Araucana is dignified and simple, and its versification correct; but little that is worthy of the name of poetry is to be found in it, though it is admittedly the best attempt at formal epic in the Spanish tongue.
