José de Villaviciosa

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José de Villaviciosa (* 1589 in Sigüenza ( Guadalajara ), † October 28, 1658 in Cuenca ) was a Spanish poet .

Life

José de Villaviciosa moved to Cuenca with his parents as a child. There he received his first lessons. At the age of 26, after his first attempts at writing, he wrote the burlesque epic La mosquea ( The War of the Flies ), which made him famous. In parallel to his writing activities, he studied law and theology . He obtained a doctorate in law and became a lawyer in Madrid .

In 1622 he was employed in Madrid as a reporter at the Inquisition Tribunal . He managed this position to the satisfaction of his superiors, so that in 1638 he was appointed Inquisitor of the Kingdom of Murcia and received a benefice at the Cathedral of Palencia . From 1644 he officiated as inquisitor and from 1648 also as canon of Cuenca and also became archdeacon of Moya. Since he was well respected by the Grand Inquisitor , he was able to secure offices in the Inquisition for his two brothers. He died in Cuenca in 1658 at the age of almost 70.

La Mosquea

La Mosquea. Poética inventiva en octava rima (Cuenca 1615) is Villaviciosa's only surviving poetic work. It is dedicated to Pedro de Rávago, Regidor of Cuenca. It is a comical heroic poem in twelve songs based on the model of Teofilo Folengo's fable poem Moschaea (1521), which in turn is an imitation of the Greek Batrachomyomachia ( war of frogs and mice ). Villaviciosa's epic also has echoes of Homer , Virgil , Ovid and Dante . The epic is about the war of the flies and their allies, led by their king Sanguilión, against the ants and their comrades-in-arms. The party of ants can win the fight.

The work is considered one of the most important examples of Spanish versepic.

literature

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personal data
SURNAME Villaviciosa, José de
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Spanish poet
DATE OF BIRTH 1589
PLACE OF BIRTH Sigüenza
DATE OF DEATH October 28, 1658
Place of death Cuenca