ABSTRACT
History modes of expression can vary widely in their substance and function. The historiographical reflection put forward at the beginning of the Phoebean Chorus rehearses many of the same themes as the artes historicae, including the transience of everything worldly and the exemplary quality of history as a form of cultural memory. Like the tragic part of Cueva’s historical drama, the prologue of the Phoebean Chorus is, thus, permeated by a strong feeling of vanity and the idea of history writing as an almost heroic preservation of great deeds in the face of their inevitable oblivion. Despite its heavy framing, Lope’s counterhistory of the Drake affair does not impart an unequivocal evangelic message about the coming of a new era, where good triumphs over evil under the auspices of the Habsburg monarchy.
