Spanish Renaissance Poetry: Garcilaso and the Golden Age

The First Renaissance and Garcilaso de la Vega

In the First Renaissance, Garcilaso de la Vega was the most important writer. Lyric poetry during this period was divided into several categories:

Traditional and Learned Lyric Styles

• Traditional Lyric: Includes royal songs, broken-foot verses, and Castilian Romances, many of which were collected in songbooks.
• Learned Lyric: The most important figure is Cristóbal de Castillejo, who wrote octosyllabic verses and opposed the Italianate style.

The Rise of Italianate Lyric

In 1526, Juan Boscán met the Venetian ambassador, who encouraged the introduction of Italian lyric styles to Spain. Boscán and Garcilaso de la Vega began writing together, with Garcilaso becoming the more prominent figure. Key influences include:

• Petrarch: Viewed love as a supreme sense where the beloved leads the lover to paradise.
• Castiglione: Author of The Courtier, who discussed courtly morality and the ideal man of the epoch.

Metrics and Common Themes

The metrics of this era focused on the hendecasyllable and heptasyllable, chained triplets, sonnets (ABBA ABBA CDC CDC), octaves (aBaBcC), and the lira (5 lines). Common topics included:

• Nature and mythology.
• Topoi such as Ubi sunt? (Where are they?) and Locus amoenus (a pleasant place).

The Works and Style of Garcilaso

Garcilaso's themes centered on impossible love, the locus amoenus, and mythological stories like Daphne and Apollo. His style utilized metaphor, epithet, hyperbaton, alliteration, and personification. His career is divided into three stages: the influence of Hispanic lyric (traditional Castilian songbooks), Petrarchism, and a final stage of fullness composed after the death of his beloved.

Major Works:

• Égloga I: Two shepherds speak of their lost loves.
• Égloga II: Unfortunate love between a shepherdess and her lover.
• Égloga III: Four nymphs embroider stories of love.

The Second Renaissance and Religious Lyric

The Second Renaissance was marked by the start of the Counter-Reformation, during which students were prohibited from attending foreign universities. Poetic currents included:

• Petrarchan: Focused on love themes and ornate language.
• Horatian: Focused on moral themes and concise language.
• Religious Lyric: Divided into Asceticism (perfecting life through struggle and sacrifice, as seen in the prose and verse of Fray Luis de León) and Mysticism.

Mysticism follows three stages: Purification (the soul leaves the body), Illumination (peace through God's presence), and Union (the soul unites with God).

Poetic Currents and Fray Luis de León

Fray Luis de León focused on themes of hermits and spiritual retreat. He wrote in odes, which are compositions of varying length using the lira. His traits included humor, irony, simplicity of writing, use of the second person, enumerations, rhetorical questions, and enjambment. He expressed emotion through nature using epithets, personification, and metaphors.

Major Works: Oda a la vida retirada, Oda a la Ascensión, Noche serena, and Profecía del Tajo.