14th Century Legacy in the Sonnets of Garcilaso Essay

Introduction

Garcilaso’s sonnets date back to the 14^th Century, he wrote most of his pieces in Naples between 1532 – 1536. He was a master of Renaissance Poetry. He perfected the art of gathering important information from his immediate surrounding and turning them into a harmonious, well-scripted artistic piece of poetry. This was referred to as the doctrine of imitatio. The kind of artistic excellence he exhibited was summed up in the 18^th century by T. S. Eliot’s theory of the impersonality of poetry:

“The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an “objective correlative”; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked”¹.

Poetry like other artistic works like painting is always perceived to be the product of natural scenes being expressed in words or colors. It is naturally assumed that the conduct of an artist would greatly inform his/her writings and that the tone and mood in a piece of literature is always an expression of personal experiences. A good piece of artwork is generally thought to be the result of enhancement of the perception and feelings of an artist of what truly exists.

Garcilaso’s poetry verses his biography

Garcilaso first eclogue is considered one of his exquisite pieces of work, he wonderfully assimilates the bucolic convention into a harmony of form and content². A perceived problem however arises in trying to reconcile Garcilaso’s biography and his artistic prowess. The question of whether he assigns a superior function to his life or his artistic work is an important one. This would essentially help to evaluate the sincerity of the love he expresses. There is evidence that Garcilaso gives precedence to his poetry. He refrained from expressing his personal life and feelings, which may be undesirable. Garcilaso uses pastoral conventions in a seemingly natural way that one may be convinced that he is “sincere”. His artistry therefore can convincingly compete with the natural human experience of love and can have a permanent impression in the readers’ mind. But does this make him sincere or is he just a good poet?

Imagery in Garcilaso’s poetry

It is often easy to discern a general philosophy in Garcilaso’s poetry, even though he often uses imagery to convey his poetic thoughts. An analysis of the poems should, however, critically examine both the imagery used and the contextual functionality of the piece. Garcilaso’s eclogue uses imagery as the unifying factor. The question is whether they convey the philosophy that informs his work. Garcilaso believes that love should be guided by some kind of universal law of correspondence. Anyone loved should reciprocate. This he thinks would lead to harmonious coexistence. He believes justice forms part of love and the consequences of non-reciprocity should be dire. This is indicated in Salico’s assertion of homicide and his appeal for the heavens for justice, as portrayed in the imagery in this line;

“dQual es el cuello que como en cadena/ de tus hermosos bracos aniudaste? “, and… mi amada yedra/ de mi arrancada, en otro muro asida,/ y mi parra en otro olmo entretexida”³

Garcilaso’s imageries in his poem exhibit some inconsistencies in his interpretation of harmony and the universality of love. His perceived assertion in the first eclogue that the expression of love that exists between a man and a woman would essentially disturb the relationship between humans and nature may not be entirely true. In the opening lines of Salico’s lament, he paints a picture of absolute tranquility with no hint of disturbance from her rhythm. There is no obvious discord in nature indicated. Nature proceeds in its normal pattern, only the shepherd is indicated to be disturbed (line 71-83)⁴.

To evaluate the function of imagery employed by Garcilaso to propagate his philosophy, it is important to look at the functionality of his thoughts in their immediate context. In looking at Salicio’s comment, Garcilaso is not really expressing the opinion that women should inherently respond to men, but rather this is an expression directed to an individual, that is, Salicio appealing for one woman Galatea to respond to him. The expression cancion is more than just an appeal to Galatea but rather an authoritarian address; this is indicated by the tone of the lines and the use of particular verbs ‘razonar’.

Evaluation of Sincerity

In his pastoral Garcilaso relies on the thoughts and ways of others in coming up with his pieces. This results in rather self-conscious poetry that is devoid of originality. However, the fact that Garcilaso could use such kind of technique but still produce pieces that are capable of evoking emotion in the reader can only be attributed to his sincerity in his work. It can be concluded that Garcilaso is expressing emotion that he deeply feels but which may not inherently be captured in his own real-life experiences.

The sincerity of Garcilaso as expressed above is perfectly correct but critics argue that if scrutinized closely the concept of sincerity is lost, for it is argued that with or without sincerity the quality of the poetry is not compromised. Among renaissance poets, irrespective of how good a piece of poetry or pastoral convention is, there is the limited expectation of an expression of raised truth or sincerity. Poetry was viewed as maintaining a significant distance from actuality. It was rather an escapist voyage. Garcilaso, therefore, does not express his actual human experience in most of his pieces. In Egolga Primera, for example, the sincerity of Garcilaso is tested, is he deceiving his audience or expressing the truth?

Some critics assumed that the tone and mood in Garcilaso’s poetry are influenced by his correspondence with real life. This approach diverts the immediate goal of the main tendencies of previous criticism. The main argument is the relationship between his life and his artistic work. If his experiences were the raw materials of which his fine pieces were the end product, then his life cannot be regarded as a pointer to his excellent artistic work. Indeed, critics are struggling to reconcile, an agitated and difficult life experience of Garcilaso and the harmonious and serene piece of poetry. In praising Garcilaso as the Prince of Castilian Poets, we negate the thought of him as a Renaissance gentleman. This changes only when his condition seems to approach a general human one. In the first eclogue, for instance, knowledge of Garcilaso’s relationship with Isabel Freyre may aid in comprehending the motivation for this poetry, or to understand allusions which we may not detect, such details of his life is devoted from the poem.

Conclusion

The argument about reconciling Garcilaso’s life and his poems notwithstanding, the evidence of sincerity is in the poetry itself. This is reflected in the depth of passion exhibited in the poems. An evaluation of the presence of sincerity in Garcilaso’s poem or lack of it thereof is uncalled for since the standard of measurement is the same poetry, we deduce our conclusions from. The issue therefore should be the level at which Garcilaso reconciles and or divorces his real-life experiences and emotions in his poetry. However, even if we had a comprehensive diary of Garcilaso the man, we may not deduce his thought as he wrote his pieces. For example, even if credible evidence could be produced supporting the purported suspicions brought about by the sonnets that Garcilaso was a philanderer and had no constant lover, but a series of affairs as alluded to in his will⁵, this would not negate the sincerity of his expressions of thought and quality of the first eclogue as a poem.

Evaluation of a poet’s sincerity – in this case of Garcilaso sincerity for love – is an attempt to alienate the poet qua poet a personality and attitudes and his independent interaction with other people in his or her daily life. This would essentially mean we would ultimately dismiss all fiction writing as insincere pieces of literature and probably uphold only documentary articles. In the long run, we will throw imaginative literature to the gutters and deny them their right full place in this discourse. Ultimately, we are faced with the dilemma of attempting to classify what really constitutes a sincere piece of literature. Therefore, when would we refer to poetry as being sincere? This would mean little more than the ability to persuade or move the reader, the poet’s biography notwithstanding.

References

Eliot, T.S., The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism, Harvard University Press, Cambridge 1964, p. 145 Garcilaso de la Vega Sonnets. Web.

Parker, A. A., “Theme and imagery in Garcilaso’s first eclogue”, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, Vol. XXV, 1948, pp. 222 – 227.

Rivers, Elias L. ed., Garcilaso de la Vega, Obras Completas. Castalia and the Ohio State University Press, Madrid and Columbus, Ohio, 1964, pp. 87 – 230.

Footnotes

1. Eliot, T.S., The Use of Poetry and the Use of Criticism”, 1964 edition, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, p.145.
2. Parker, A. A., “Theme and imagery in Garcilaso’s first eclogue”, Bulletin of Spanish Studies, October, XXV (1948), pp. 222-7.
3. Quotations taken from Quotations taken from Rivers, Elias L. ed., Garcilaso de la Vega, Obras Completas. Castali and the Ohio State University Press, Madrid and Columbus, Ohio, (1964) p 97.
4. Poem cited. Web.
5. Rivers, ed. op.cit., p. 212.