Juan Pérez de Montalbán (1602 – 25 June 1638) was a Spanish Catholic priest,

dramatist A playwright or dramatist is a person who writes plays, which are a form of drama that primarily consists of dialogue between characters and is intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. Ben Jonson coined the term "playwri ...

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

novelist A novelist is an author or writer of novels, though often novelists also write in other genres of both fiction and non-fiction. Some novelists are professional novelists, thus make a living wage, living writing novels and other fiction, while other ...

Biography

He was born in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

. At the age of eighteen, he became a licentiate in

theology Theology is the study of religious belief from a Religion, religious perspective, with a focus on the nature of divinity. It is taught as an Discipline (academia), academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itse ...

. He was ordained priest in 1625 and appointed notary to the Inquisition. A notable member of the

Medrano Academy The Medrano Academy (Spanish language, Spanish: ''Academia Medrano''), also known as the Poetic Academy of Madrid, was a prominent ''academia literaria'' of the Spanish Golden Age, founded by Dr. Sebastian Francisco de Medrano, Sebastián Francisc ...

, in 1619 he began writing for the stage under the guidance of

Lope de Vega Félix Lope de Vega y Carpio (; 25 November 156227 August 1635) was a Spanish playwright, poet, and novelist who was a key figure in the Spanish Golden Age (1492–1659) of Spanish Baroque literature, Baroque literature. In the literature of ...

, who is said to have assisted him in composing ''El Orfeo en lengua castellana'' (1624), a poem intended to compete with Jáuregui's ''Orfeo'', published earlier in the same year. Montalbán's father, a publisher at Madrid, issued a pirated edition of Quevedo's '' Buscón'', which roused an angry controversy. The violence of these

polemic Polemic ( , ) is contentious rhetoric intended to support a specific position by forthright claims and to undermine the opposing position. The practice of such argumentation is called polemics, which are seen in arguments on controversial to ...

s, the strain of overwork, and the death of Lope de Vega so affected Montalbán that he became insane; he died in Madrid on 25 June 1638. His last work was a eulogistic biography of Lope de Vega in the ''Fama póstuma'' (1636).

Works

His plays, published in 1635–1638, are all in the manner of Lope de Vega. They were staged with much success, but, with the exception of ''Los Amantes de Teruel'', are little more than clever improvizations. Montalbán almost rivaled Lope de Vega in dramatic productiveness, but, according to one critic, he followed that writer's conventional manner, flimsiness in construction, and carelessness in execution too closely. The prose tales in ''Sucesos y prodigios de amor, en ocho novelets ejemplares'' (1624) and ''Para todos: Exemplos morales, humanos y divinos'' (1632) were very popular.

George Ticknor George Ticknor (August 1, 1791 – January 26, 1871) was an American academician and Hispanist, specializing in the subject areas of languages and literature. He is known for his scholarly work on the history and criticism of Spanish literatur ...

characterized “The Disastrous Friendship,” a tale in the former collection, as one of the best in the

Spanish language Spanish () or Castilian () is a Romance languages, Romance language of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin spoken on the Iberian Peninsula of Europe. Today, it is a world language, gl ...

. “Aurora and the Prince,” was translated into English by Thomas Stanley (1647).London: printed for Humphrey Moseley, at the signe of the Princes Armes in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1647 A

libel Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...

lous attack on Quevedo, entitled ''El Tribunal de la justa venganza'' (1635), is often ascribed to Montalbán. Montalbán's reputation was such that sometimes his name appeared on works by other writers.

Notes

References

* This work in turn cites: **

, ''History of Spanish Literature'', 1863, v. 2.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Perez de Montalban, Juan 1602 births 1638 deaths Clergy from Madrid Spanish dramatists and playwrights Spanish male dramatists and playwrights Spanish novelists Spanish male novelists 17th-century Spanish poets Spanish Catholic poets Spanish Roman Catholic priests Writers from Madrid Spanish male poets 17th-century Spanish male writers