Orphans of Petrarch: poetry and theory in the Spanish Renaissance

Abstract

In Spain as elsewhere, Renaissance poets transformed the lyric tradition by using Petrarch as a source of poetic renewal. But political unity and military hegemony, coupled with a sense of cultural inferiority and an obsession with ethnic purity, made Spain different. Drawing on modern critical theory, this text offers an exposition of the development of Renaissance poetics. Grounded in both philology and cultural theory, the book integrates the Spanish difference into an understanding of Renaissance lyric as a European phenomenon.