biography
| name: |
Virués, Cristóbal de
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pronunciation:
[veerooes]
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (c.1550–c.1614)
|
| biography:
| Spanish epic poet and playwright, born in Valencia, E Spain. He is reported to have fought as a soldier at Lepanto and Milan. His long anti-Reformist poem in octavas reales, El Monserrate (1587), deals with the legend of the hermit Juan Garín, and was successful both in a popular sense (El Monserrate segundo 1602 being its sequel) and in a critical sense (Cervantes preserved it from destruction in the bookburning scene of Quijote). It is reprinted in Vol 17 (1851) of the Biblioteca de Autores Españoles. He wrote plays during c.1575–90, but they were not published until 1609, when they appeared as Obras trágicas y líricas del capitán Cristóbal de Virués. They include La gran Semíramis, La cruel Casandra, Atila furioso, La infelice Marcela, and Elisa Dido, and are more properly described as melodramas than tragedies. |
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