Gil Vicente

This article is about Portuguese playwright. For the association football club, see Gil Vicente F.C.

Gil Vicente (1470-1540) was a Portuguese poet and playwright.

Biography

Gil Vicente was born in 1470 in the town of Guimarães. He came to Lisbon as a boy. He studied law but did not take any scholarly degree. In 1493 he was prince Manoel's teacher of rhetorics. Some of his poems were included into Cancioneiro Geral by Garcia de Resende. He wrote plays. He was an actor, too. He was married to Branca Bezerra and had four children. His daughter Paula was known a learned woman at the court.

Works

Gil Vicente wrote poetry and plays. He wrote both in Portuguese and in Spanish. He is called the father of Portuguese drama. His works were translated into English by Aubrey F. G. Bell. Among his poems there are vilancetes, pastoral poems. A famous example is Adorae montanhas.

Bibliography

• Aubrey F. G. Bell, Gil Vicente, Oxford University Press, Oxford 1921.
• Four plays of Gil Vicente. Edited from the editio princeps (1562), with Translation and Notes by Aubrey F. G. Bell, Cambridge 1920.
• Lyrics of Gil Vicente with Portuguese text. Translated by Aubrey F. G. Bell, B. H. Blackwell, Oxford 1914.