Versification in Cervantes’s Drama

Abstract

With the overwhelming success of Don Quixote, many writers were as damning of his poetic verses as they were praising of the famous novel. However, students of Cervantine writing and its idiosyncrasies identify a wealth of ingenuity in his verse writing, including in poems and theatrical works. This chapter focuses on the use of polymetric verse in Cervantes’s drama, exploring its different uses and meanings in comparison with other writer, principally Lope de Vega, and demonstrating that it is much more sophisticated than it has been given credit for over the centuries.