Lope de Vega and the «lindo»: Satire and Masculinity in «De cosario a cosario»

Abstract

This article examines how Lope de Vega used one of the most prevalent satirical targets in the comedia nueva: the lindo. To do so, we will begin by briefly presenting a series of concepts —such as the difference between gender and sex—, belonging to the field of Masculinity Studies, which are very useful when analyzing Lope’s lindos. Then we will study what was a lindo for Golden Age Spanish writers, and we will focus on one of his traits: his hairdo, adorned with guedejas (long locks), tufos (ear-covering curly locks) and copetes (tupés). After having noticed these dos in other woks by Lope (such as the Rimas de Tomé de Burguillos), we examine them in an urban comedy of his, De cosario a cosario, a play in which the lindos are essential to the main plot. By analyzing it, we discover that, more than portraying an existing type, Lope contributed to create a ridiculous figure that was perpetuated in the literature of the time, and that he used to criticize the youth culture of his time, whose poetic and dramatic taste he found equally awful.