The Atlantic Metropolis: Ships and Seafarers in Lope de Vega's El Arenal de Sevilla

This article examines Lope de Vega's poetic dramatization of Seville's maritime culture and space in El Arenal de Sevilla, an early comedia urbana composed in 1603 while the playwright was residing in Seville. Set amid the ships docked along the Guadalquivir River, the chaotic play presents long sequences of side plots and frenzied scene changes that reflect the bustling seaport and its mass maritime transit. The theme of constant motion around Arenal banks and the constant poetic attention to the Indies Fleet reveal how maritime operations define the play's metropolitan space as a convergence of oceangoing travelers and goods unfettered by traditional borders. Moreover, Lope's characters merge their poetic descriptions of the Indies Fleet with the physical site of the riverbank, suggesting the Arenal, and by extension Seville, is itself like a ship that can transport is its inhabitants anywhere.