Vicente Martínez Espinel

Espinel, Vicente Martínez

 

Baptized Dec. 28, 1550, in Ronda; died Feb. 4, 1624, in Madrid. Spanish writer.

After studying at the University of Salamanca, Espinel became a priest. He was the author of the collection Various Verses (1591). His modified form of the décima (a rhyming stanzaic form of ten lines) came to be known as the espinela. Espinel’s realistic novel The. History of the Life of the Squire of Marcos de Obregón (1618; Russian translation, 1935) was written in the style of the picaresque novel; several motifs from Marcos de Obregón were borrowed by A. R. Lesage in The Story of Gil Bias of Santillane.

REFERENCES

Vásquez Otero, D. Vida de Vicente Martínez Espinel. Málaga, 1948.
Haley, G. Vicente Espinel and Marcos de Obregón. Providence, R.I., 1959.