1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Iriarte y Oropesa, Tomás de

IRIARTE (or Yriarte) Y OROPESA, TOMÁS DE (1750–1791), Spanish poet, was born on the 18th of September 1750, at Orotava in the island of Teneriffe, and received his literary education at Madrid 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 appeared a dull didactic poem in silvas entitled La Música, which attracted some attention in Italy as well as at home. The Fábulas literarias (1781), with which his name is most intimately associated, are composed in a great variety of metres, and show considerable ingenuity in their humorous attacks on literary men and methods; but their merits have been greatly exaggerated. During his later years, partly in consequence of the Fábulas, Iriarte was absorbed in personal controversies, and in 1786 was reported to the Inquisition for his sympathies with the French philosophers. He died on the 17th of September 1791.

He is the subject of an exhaustive monograph (1897) by Emilio Cotarelo y Mori.