2025/06/09 by Víctor Sierra Matute · 1 voice
Arts and Humanities · #Comparative Literary Analysis and Criticism #Early Modern Spanish Literature #Spanish Literature and Culture Studies
paper · doi:10.1080/08831157.2025.2511606
openalex publication_date 2025/06/09 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
This article argues that the figure of Garcilaso de la Vega as the foundational “prince of Spanish lyric poetry” emerged through two distinct yet related processes of textual construction and reinterpretation, each intimately tied to philological practices in different historical periods. First, beginning in the mid-sixteenth century, Garcilaso’s poems underwent an early canonization through proto-philological practices—editorial annotations, textual commentaries, and emerging literary criticism—that reframed his work within the esthetic paradigms of Renaissance and Baroque classicism. Second, a retrospective process of “lyricization” (Jackson and Prins) took shape in the twentieth century, driven by modern philological and nationalist impulses that positioned Garcilaso as the cornerstone of a cohesive Spanish literary tradition. Examining editions, commentaries, and scholarly discourse across these periods, the essay traces how Garcilaso’s poetic status became increasingly entangled with broader ideological projects. Using the figure of Garcilaso as a paradigmatic example, I show how lyric canonization must be understood as a historically layered process shaped by critical mediation and evolving disciplinary frameworks.