Renaissance Poetry: Petrarch, Garcilaso, and San Juan
Renaissance Poetry: Key Figures and Themes
Petrarch
Subjects: Medieval courtly love: the idealized lady, classical indifference.
Resources: Incorporates many references to Latin poets, expressing the sorrows of an impossible, ideal, and distant love.
Expression of Feeling: Petrarch is a poet who manages to convey a wide range of feelings (pain, absence, jealousy, sadness).
Language: Polished, clear, and vivid language.
Poetic Figures:
- Frequency of antithesis, correlations, and apparent paradoxes.
- Alliteration related to the name of his lady: Laura (laurel).
- Use of metaphors and similes about the effects of love: injury, fire, prison.
New Metric Forms:
- Use of the hendecasyllable verse.
- Common forms include the sonnet, silva, stay, song, eclogue, ode, ballad, and Italianate madrigal.
Garcilaso de la Vega
One of the greatest Spanish poets, known for formal perfection and lasting influence. His poems were first published in 1543, after his death, by Juan Boscán. He cultivated both traditional Castilian poetry and Italianate poetry.
Features:
- Influence: Latin and Renaissance themes and forms (Virgil, Petrarch).
- Poetic Language: Aimed for transparency and clarity in expression, avoiding excessive embellishment.
- Topics: Garcilaso often uses common topics:
- Locus amoenus: mythical, beautiful landscape.
- Female beauty: white face, pink cheeks, white skin, blue eyes, long neck, and flowing hair.
- Idealization of the shepherd.
- Carpe diem: alludes to the transience of life and invites enjoyment while possible.
The Eclogues
Bucolic poems in which two or more shepherds express their love amidst idealized nature. Garcilaso wrote three pastorals.
The Sonnets
A structure in which the contents are organized in related blocks. Garcilaso shows his classicism in his sonnets, finding harmony between form and thought.
The Songs
Songs III and V are particularly noteworthy.
Fray Luis de León
His poems inherited Renaissance form and content.
Shape:
- Italianate verse and stanzas, mainly using the lira and hendecasyllable and heptasyllable verses.
Contents:
- Classical topics combined with religious themes.
Original Poetry: Consists of compositions that exalt the desire for peace, tranquility, and spiritual rest, yearning for eternal happiness and elevation of the soul to divinity, and discussing religious reasons.
Prose Works:
- Translations of the Bible, incorporating his own comments.
- Two original works: De los nombres de Cristo and La perfecta casada.
San Juan de la Cruz
Poetic Work:
- Dark Night of the Soul: Expresses the joy and emotion of the soul for having reached the highest state of perfection, union with God.
- Spiritual Canticle: Formed by songs from the soul and the husband, inspired by the Song of Songs.
- Llama de amor viva: Short poem expressing the joy of the soul consumed in divine love.