Fourteen Lines: Lope de Vega's Self-Writing Sonnet
Read an A2 Spanish guide to Lope de Vega's playful sonnet, its fourteen lines, quatrains, tercets, rhyme, and self-counting structure.
Catorce versos: el soneto que se escribe solo
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About this article
What you'll learn
Poetry vocabulary, past and present narration, indirect object pronouns, present perfect, cuando, and reader questions.
A factual A2 reading about Lope de Vega's sonnet beginning Un soneto me manda hacer Violante. It follows how the poem counts its own quatrains, tercets, and fourteen lines. Violante is identified as a figure in the poem, not a reconstructed historical conversation.
After reading
Article learning block
Phrases, words, grammar, and quick practice from this text.
Phrases for training
Add useful phrases to SRS or mark them as already known.
durante el Siglo de Oro
newduring the Golden Age
Durante introduces the period in which something happened.
Useful for locating events in time.
paso a paso
newstep by step
It describes a process completed in small successive stages.
Useful when explaining a method or sequence.
al mismo tiempo
newat the same time
It says that two events happen simultaneously.
Useful for linking actions that coincide.
Key words
Vocabulary that carries the school-day topic.
Sonnet
soneto
sonnet
A poem with fourteen lines and an established structure.
A central word for Spanish poetry.
Lines of verse
versos
lines of verse
The separate lines that form a poem.
Useful for counting and describing poems.
Quatrains
cuartetos
quatrains
Groups of four lines in a poem.
It names the first two sections of this sonnet.
Tercets
tercetos
tercets
Groups of three lines in a poem.
It names the final two sections of this sonnet.
Rhyme
rima
rhyme
A repeated sound pattern at the ends of lines.
A basic word for describing poetry.
Commission
encargo
commission or assignment
A task that one person asks another to do.
Useful for work, art and everyday requests.
Grammar in context
Patterns from the text worth noticing after reading.
Indirect object le
Violante le pide un soneto.
Violante asks him for a sonnet.
Le marks the person who receives the request.
It helps say to whom an action is directed.
Present perfect
ya ha escrito tres versos
has already written three lines
Ha escrito connects a completed action with the current result.
Useful for recent results and life experience.
Cuando plus present
Cuando llega al verso ocho
When it reaches line eight
Cuando introduces the moment at which the next action happens.
It helps organize a sequence.
Present for textual facts
Hay catorce y el soneto está hecho.
There are fourteen and the sonnet is finished.
The present tense describes the text as the reader sees it.
Useful for summaries and reviews.
Question with parecer
¿Te parece fácil escribir catorce versos?
Does writing fourteen lines seem easy to you?
Te parece asks for the listener's opinion.
A natural way to invite an evaluation.
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