History and Poetry in Alonso de Castillo Solórzano’s Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1639)

Abstract

Alonso de Castillo Solórzano’s Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra (1639) is the most sustained treatment of the figure of Cleopatra in the Spanish Golden Age and the volume also has the particularity of being a prose history interspersed with a significant number of poems by the author and by other writers. This article contextualises the work and examines the moral and political lessons which emerge from the presentation of Cleopatra and of the major Roman figures (Julius Caesar, Antony, Octavian) with whom her life became entwined. The essay identifies the exact sources of much of Castillo Solórzano’s prose history and demonstrates how these are woven together and to what ends. The character and effects of the interpolated poetry are then examined, with a special emphasis on the most prolific external contributor to the volume, the Aragonese Francisco Diego de Sayas. The final part of the study offers some conclusions about the interaction or otherwise of prose and poetry in the composition and meanings of Historia de Marco Antonio y Cleopatra.