Seventeenth-Century Spanish Poetry

This is the first comprehensive study in English of one of the most important bodies of verse in European literature. Seventeenth-century Spanish poetry represents the culmination of a rich Renaissance tradition, and Professor Terry sets out to make this accessible not only to Hispanists but to readers of English, French and Italian poetry, with which it had many points of contact. He deals both with the major poets - Góngora, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - and with the impressively large number of good minor poets, from the Argensolas to Bocángel and Soto de Rojas, whose work is still relatively little read. Drawing upon recent developments in literary criticism as well as paying close attention to individual poems, the book discusses a wide range of issues including the re working of classical and Renaissance models, the importance of rhetoric, and the relationship between author, poem and reader.

• The poetry of seventeenth-century Spain is one of the great European traditions, with numerous major and good minor poets • There is no other book available in English or Spanish providing a thorough and theoretically informed overview of the subject • This book is accessible to specialists and students, both of Spanish and of other literatures, with English translations provided for all quotations

1. The inheritance; 2. Theory and practice; 3. Luis de Góngora: the Poetry of Transformation; 4. Lope de Vega: Re-writing a life; 5. Between two centuries: from Medrano to Valdivielso; 6. Francisco de Quevedo: The force of eloquence; 7. The literary epic; 8. Plenitude and decline: from Villamediana to the second half of the century; 9. Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz: the end of a tradition; Epilogue; Select bibliography; Index.