Lo fingido means ‘the feigned’ or ‘the false’ or ‘the pretended’, and verdadero means ‘truth’ or ‘true thing’ or ‘real thing’. So Lo fingido verdadero is ‘the real fakery’ or the ‘false truth’. The title includes a sense of ‘the pretend becomes real’ with an understood hecho (‘made’) in between the words fingido and verdadero.
Lope dramatises the relationship between religious experience and role play by fusing them into one. It is the story of St. Genesius, executed by the emperor Diocletian for converting to Christianity after portraying a Christian in a play to entertain the Emperor. It is the Spanish Golden Age play that best exemplifies the world-as-stage metaphor brought to life onstage.
This play depicts the Roman martyr Genesius, who is put to death as a Christian convert after playing the role of a Christian for the entertainment of the emperor Diocletian. The play b... (Read more...)
Based on the story of St. Genesius, who converted to Christianity while performing for the emperor Diocletian, and was executed.
Lo fingido verdadero is often seen as Lope’s most metatheatrical play, and as a dramatic representation of some of Lope’s ideas about theatre set down in his Arte nuevo. Its religious ... (Read more...)
Vega, Lope de. 1621. Decima sexta Parte de las Comedias de Lope de Vega Carpio. Madrid
Vega, Lope de. 1916-30. Lo fingido verdadero. In Obras de Lope de Vega, ed. Emilio Cotarelo y Mor... (Read more...)
Canning, Elaine. 2004. Lope de Vega’s Comedias de Tema Religioso. Serie A: Monografías, 204. Woodbridge,Tamesis
Canning, Elaine. 2008. ‘Sacred Souls and Sinners: Abstinence and Adaptation in Lope’s Religious Drama’. In A Companion to Lope de Vega, eds. Alexander Samson and Jonathan Thacker, pp. 147-58. Woodbridge, Tamesis
Dixon, Victor. 1997‑8. ‘Lo fingido verdadero y sus espectadores’, Diablotexto: Revista de critica literaria, 4-5, 97-114 (in Spanish)
Dixon, Victor. 1999. ‘ “Ya tienes la comedia prevenida ... la imagen de la vida”: Lo fingido verdadero’, Cuadernos de teatro clásico, 11, 53-72 (in Spanish)
Fischer, Susan L. 1976-77. ‘Lope’s Lo fingido verdadero and the Dramatization of the Theatrical Experience’, Revista Hispánica Moderna, Columbia University Hispanic Studies, 39, 156-66
Grubbs, Anthony John. 2006. ‘The Dramatization of the Arte nuevo: Revisiting Lo fingido verdadero’, Bulletin of the Comediantes, 58, 2, 341-57
McGaha, Michael D. 1986. Introduction to Acting is Believing, translation of Lo fingido verdadero by Lope de Vega. San Antonio, TX, Trinity University Press
Trueblood, Alan S. 1964. ‘Role-playing and the Sense of Illusion in Lope de Vega’, Hispanic Review, 32, 305-18
Entry written by Kathleen Jeffs. Last updated on 4 October 2010.