Analysis of Manrique's Coplas and Garcilaso's Poetry

Jorge Manrique's Coplas a la Muerte de su Padre

Jorge Manrique's fame stems from his verses on the death of his father, composed after Don Rodrigo's passing in 1476 and published in Seville in 1494. This elegy belongs to the medieval tradition of Christian asceticism: against the worldliness of life, it calls for the acceptance of death as a transition to eternal life. However, the underlying concept suggests a prelude to the Renaissance conception of the following century: besides earthly life and eternal life, it refers to the life of fame, the enduring presence in this world by virtue of an exemplary life that remains in living memory.

In terms of style, characterized by the avoidance of any rhetorical excess or scholarly display, Manrique employs an elegant style resulting from the use of simple words and expressions belonging to common speech. Exponent of this search for simplicity is the choice of a minor strophic form, the versos de pie quebrado (which, due to the work's popularity, came to be known as coplas manriqueñas). Each copla consists of two broken-foot sextuplets (8a, 8b, 4c, 8a, 8b, 4c), with consonant rhyme.

The Third Part (Verses XXV-XL)

This section focuses on the figure of the author's father, Don Rodrigo Manrique. It begins with Don Rodrigo's eulogy, where the poet first extols his virtues directly or through comparisons with historical figures, and then reviews the main events of his life. A dialogue between Don Rodrigo and personified Death follows. Death initiates the dialogue, reiterating the Christian concept of existence and stating that Don Rodrigo deserves eternal life due to his exemplary conduct. In response, Rodrigo accepts his end with exemplary Christian resignation and offers a prayer to Jesus, begging for the forgiveness of his sins.

The Second Part

This part illustrates the doctrine presented in the first. The lack of value of worldly life and goods—pleasures and wealth—is exemplified by showing the effects of time, fortune, and death on powerful figures: their power served them nothing against death, which treated them like the poor and the common. The author refrains from giving examples from ancient times; "what happened yesterday," recent history, provides sufficient examples: King Juan II and the infantes of Aragon, Enrique IV, Don Alfonso, Don Alvaro de Luna, Juan Pacheco, and Pedro Girón. After this list, the poet addresses Death in an apostrophe to highlight its immense destructive power, against which there is no defense.

Garcilaso de la Vega

His poetry, prepared by Boscán and published in 1543, is diverse: an epistle, two elegies, three eclogues, five canciones, 38 sonnets (marking the acclimation of this form to Spanish literature, mostly dealing with love, such as "A la flor de Gnido," "En tanto que de rosa y azucena," and "A Dafne ya los brazos le crecían"), and some traditional pieces. Among all his works, the ones that reveal the greatest artistic perfection are Eclogues I and III.

Eclogue I, written in stanzas, features the shepherd Salicio lamenting the disdain of his beloved Galatea, while Nemoroso mourns the death of his beloved Elisa. In Eclogue III, written in octaves, four nymphs weave tapestries alongside nature, creating an idealistic and serene setting.

Garcilaso's style evolved from traditional songs to a poetry of ease and elegance, reflecting the Renaissance ideal. The resources he employed include syntactic parallelism and enumeration of elements, giving his verse a simple, intuitive expression.