Luis Vélez De Guevara
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Luis Vélez de Guevara (born Luis Vélez de Santander) (1 August 1579 – 10 November 1644) was a Spanish
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 ...
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 ...
. He was born at Écija and was of Jewish converso descent.Antonio Dominiguez Ortiz, "Los judeoconversos en España y América." Madrid, 1971. After graduating as a
sizar At Trinity College Dublin and the University of Cambridge, a sizar is an Undergraduate education, undergraduate who receives some form of assistance such as meals, lower fees or lodging during his or her period of study, in some cases in retur ...
at the University of Osuna in 1596, he joined the household of Rodrigo de Castro, Cardinal-Archbishop of Seville, and celebrated the marriage of Philip III in a poem signed Vélez de Santander, a name which he continued to use until some years later. It seems he served as a soldier in
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
and
Algiers Algiers is the capital city of Algeria as well as the capital of the Algiers Province; it extends over many Communes of Algeria, communes without having its own separate governing body. With 2,988,145 residents in 2008Census 14 April 2008: Offi ...
, returning to Spain in 1602 when he entered the service of the count de Saldaña, and dedicated himself to writing for the stage. He died at
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 ...
on 10 November 1644. Velez de Guevara was the author of over four hundred plays, of which the best are ''Reinar despues de morir'', ''La luna de la sierra'', and ''El diablo está en Cantillana''. The play ''Más pesa el rey que la sangre'', which translates into "The King weighs more than blood (kinship)" is based on the episode of the
Reconquista The ''Reconquista'' (Spanish language, Spanish and Portuguese language, Portuguese for ) or the fall of al-Andalus was a series of military and cultural campaigns that European Christian Reconquista#Northern Christian realms, kingdoms waged ag ...
in which the nobleman
Alonso Pérez de Guzmán Alonso Pérez de Guzmán (1256–1309), known as ''Guzmán el Bueno'' ("Guzmán the Good"), was a Spanish nobleman and hero of Spain during the Middle Ages, medieval period. Guzmán is the progenitor of the Dukes of Medina Sidonia, the oldes ...
allows his son to be sacrificed, rather than surrender his King's possession of Tarifa. However, Vélez de Guevara is most widely known as the author of '' El diablo cojuelo'' (1641, "The Lame Devil" or "The Crippled Devil"), a fantastic novel which suggested to Alain-René Lesage the idea for ''Le Diable boiteux'' (1707). The plot presents a rascal student that hides in an astrologer's mansard. He frees a devil from a bottle. As an acknowledgement the devil shows him the apartments of Madrid and the tricks, miseries and mischiefs of their inhabitants. A similar theme was suggested by the magic lenses in ''Los anteojos de mejor vista'' (1620–1625) by Rodrigo Fernández de Ribera.
Charles Dickens Charles John Huffam Dickens (; 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870) was an English novelist, journalist, short story writer and Social criticism, social critic. He created some of literature's best-known fictional characters, and is regarded by ...
refers to ''El Diablo cojuelo'' in
The Old Curiosity Shop ''The Old Curiosity Shop'' is the fourth novel by English author Charles Dickens; being one of his two novels (the other being ''Barnaby Rudge'') published along with short stories in his weekly serial ''Master Humphrey's Clock'', from 1840 t ...
, chapter thirty-three.


References

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External links

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Works by Luis Vélez de Guevara
a
Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Velez De Guevara, Luis Spanish poets Spanish Golden Age Spanish novelists 1579 births 1644 deaths People from Écija Spanish male dramatists and playwrights Spanish male poets 17th-century Spanish dramatists and playwrights 17th-century Spanish poets Spanish Baroque writers