Garcilaso de la Vega: Renaissance Poetry and Style
Garcilaso de la Vega: His Work
Garcilaso de la Vega’s work was ready for editing and published in 1543. It was compiled by his friend Juan Boscán and is relatively short: 3 Églogas, 40 Sonetos, 4 Canciones, 2 Elegías, one verse, and 1 Epístola. It contains no samples of traditional songbook poetry.
The sonnets are loving, and the canciones and elegías reveal a new Renaissance sensibility. They show a direct influence of the classics and a stoic attitude toward unfortunate events. His eclogues, along with his sonnets, represent the culmination of his poetic talent. Égloga II was written first; it is extensive and unique, presenting dramatic action. Égloga I is well-known, and Égloga III is the most accomplished. Written in octavas reales, the predominant theme shows a Platonic conception of love with evident traces of the Petrarchan tradition.
The indifference of the lady and the lover’s pain, oscillating between hope and despair, are secretly discussed, analyzing various states of consciousness with poetic sharpness. His poetry transmits a strong sense of sincerity, which has been linked to the autobiographical nature of the poems from Toledo. Characteristic of the poetry of the time was a certain rhetoric of sincerity, intended to provide some idea of truth through the transparency of the sentiments expressed in the verses. Another big issue is nature, as a stylized environment where characters complain to their confidant about their woes, and who listens and comforts them. The primitive and rustic nature has its direct antecedent in the classical eclogue.
Themes in Garcilaso’s Poetry
Love is predominant, showing a markedly Platonic conception and evident traces of the Petrarchan tradition. The indifference of the lady and the lover’s pain, oscillating between hope and despair, are secretly analyzed with various states of consciousness and sharpness. It transmits sincerity, related to the autobiographical character of the poems from Toledo. Common in the poetry of the time was a certain rhetoric of sincerity, which pretended that the sentiments expressed in the verses provided some idea of truth through transparency. Probably in poetry, personal feelings and literary rhetoric are combined. The evolution from his first compositions, closer to the lyrical topics of the songbook, to his poems of maturity, steeped in the new Renaissance sentimentality, is softer and more melancholic. Another great theme is nature, as the environment where characters complain and as a confidant who listens and comforts.
Style and Innovation
Garcilaso’s poetic work is a sign of the creation of a new type of Spanish poetry in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which songs feature the poetry of the fifteenth century with influences from Italy. His language is simple and natural. He seeks a classical, fluid balance between passion and a desire for harmony and restraint. This is reflected in the symmetry of his poetic structures. The tone of his poetry is sweet, sad, and melancholic, as preposed adjectives suggest. The hendecasyllable, predominantly associated with heptasyllables, gives him expressive freedom. This is the result of the historical and literary context he knew. While he reaches the full Renaissance ideal of clarity and simplicity of expression, the attempts of the Renovators of Mena in the fifteenth century were a frustrated proposal, departing from the language and sensitivity with which the Renaissance triumphed.