Fabulas Literarias

Tomás de Iriarte (or Yriarte) y Oropesa (Puerto de la Cruz, La Orotava, island of Tenerife, 1750 — Madrid, 1791), was a Spanish neoclassical poet. Tomás was born to the Iriarte family, many of whose members were writers in the humanist tradition. His father was Don Bernardo de Iriarte, (1735 Puerto dela Cruz - Bordeaux, France, in exile, 1814) while his mother was Doña Bárbara de las Nieves Hernández de Oropesa. He received his literary education at Madrid where he went aged 14 in 1764 under the care of his uncle, Juan de Iriarte, librarian to the king of Spain. In his eighteenth year the nephew began his literary career by translating French plays for the royal theatre, and in 1770, under the anagram of Tirso Imarete, he published an original comedy entitled Hacer que hacemos. In the following year he became official translator at the foreign office, and in 1776 keeper of the records in the war department. In 1780 he authored a didactic poem in cilvas entitled La Música.