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Lope de Vega's Rimas sacras: Conversion, Clientage, and the Performance of Masculinity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Alison Weber
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Abstract

In 1614 Lope de Vega, recently ordained, published the Rimas sacras, a confessional canzoniere replete with allusions to his past promiscuity and recent religious conversion. I argue that Lope addressed his collection not only to a public of anonymous readers but also to a specific, private reader: his patron, the duke of Sessa. For the previous eight years, Lope had served as Sessa's erotic amanuensis, writing love letters and poems for the duke's various mistresses. I propose that the collection as a whole and several sonnets in particular constitute an implicit reproach to Sessa. Through his religious poetry, Lope sought to repudiate his degraded masculine identity as the duke's epistolary pimp (and reputed lover) and affirm his status as a priest who served a more exalted and loving patron. In the Rimas sacras, the discourses of clientage and Petrarchan love are imbricated in the dominant religious discourse, rendering it more available for contestatory practices than is often recognized.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 120 , Issue 2 , March 2005 , pp. 404 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2005

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