Tradition and thematic and metrical innovation in Las latinas o poesías castellanas en metro latino by Esteban Manuel de Villegas

Abstract

Esteban Manuel de Villegas, born in Matute (La Rioja, Spain), is a rara avis in the Spanish literary panorama of the 17th century. From his earliest youth, when he begins his production, he writes following a classic literary canon in terms of contents and structure and he shapes his poetic works with criteria far from current trends. He believes that the result will surpass even the compositions of the already consecrated authors of the Spanish Golden Age. He materialises one of his most risky bets in the fourth book of the second part of Las Eróticas o amatorias, a work published in 1618.

In the following article the literary life of the author is contextualised, his poetic works are described grosso modo and several compositions of his book Las latinas are commented on from the point of view of content and metrics. The aim is to shed light on the knowledge of an author who, although he does not eclipse the authors who structure Spanish literature in the Golden Age, despite trying from the very cover of his work, adopts correct decisions on metric issues in a moment of settlement of compositional criteria in verse.

https://doi.org/10.17398/2660-7301.41.61