The Lyrical Poetry and Themes of Garcilaso de la Vega

Garcilaso de la Vega: Life and Lyrical Themes

Garcilaso de la Vega cultivated the lyrical theme of love addressed to a woman named Elisa, identified as Isabel Freyre, a Portuguese lady who accompanied the Empress. Garcilaso met her a year after marrying Elena Zúñiga. She married another man and later died in childbirth, so she never responded to his affections.

Major Poetic Works

His poetry, published in 1543, includes:

• Three Eclogues: Among the most successful of his production.
• Sonnets: Thirty-one sonnets in the Petrarchan style.
• Elegies: Two elegies.
• Epistle: An epistle to his friend Boscán.
• Ode to the Flower of Cnidus: Written in the style of the lyre, named after the first verse of the composition: "Si de mi baja lira..."

Thematic Focus

Regarding his subjects, his poems are full of love and inspired by the work of Petrarch. They almost always address the "loving complaint," motivated by the rejection or death of the beloved (sometimes called Elisa). To express his pain, he composed poems in the first person or imagined stories featuring mythological characters, shepherds, or goatherds to convey his own feelings.

Analysis of Eclogues

His production includes:

Eclogue I

This work features two shepherds who represent different moods of Garcilaso:

• Salicio: Regrets the rejection of Galatea (representing Isabel Freyre at the time of her marriage to another).
• Nemoroso: Mourns his beloved Elisa (an anagram of Isabel).

Eclogue II

Features Albanio, who, desperate for Camilla, attempts suicide. It also contains praise for the House of Alba; the name Albanio refers to Don Bernardino, brother of the Duke of Alba.

Eclogue III

Four nymphs weave love scenes:

• Three are mythological: Apollo and Daphne, Venus and Adonis, and Orpheus and Eurydice.
• The fourth depicts a contemporary scene along the Tagus River: the death of Elisa, where Nemoroso mourns, corresponding to the themes in Eclogue I.

Poetic Style

Garcilaso uses a simple, natural vocabulary accessible to 16th-century readers. His rhetorical resources pass almost unnoticed; when describing female beauty or the locus amoenus, they never hinder the understanding of the poem.