Garcilaso de la Vega

Garcilaso de la Vega (Toledo, between 1491 and 1503 according to different sources; Nice, 14 October 1536) was a Spanish soldier and poet. He is one of the great figures of the Spanish Renaissance and the writer who, more than any other, brought Italian verse forms, themes and meters into Spanish. He wrote in Castilian, but his poetic voice took shape in constant dialogue with Petrarch and with the poets of Naples, and his work changed the course of lyric poetry in the language.

Born into a noble Toledo family, he lost his father as a child and was educated at court, where he learned Greek, Latin, Italian and French, along with fencing and several instruments. He entered the service of Charles I in 1520 as a contino and in 1523 was admitted to the Order of Santiago. His early years were spent at arms. He fought in the Revolt of the Comuneros, was wounded at Olías del Rey, and joined a relief expedition to Rhodes, where he was wounded again. His friendship with Juan Boscán, whom he met in 1519, shaped his literary training and drew him toward the poetry of Ausiàs March.

Around 1525 he married Elena de Zúñiga, a lady-in-waiting to the infanta Leonor, in a match driven by family interests. His duties with the court kept him away from Toledo for much of his life. In 1528, he dictated his will in Barcelona, acknowledging an illegitimate son, Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa, born to Guiomar Carrillo. Around 1526 his writing changed direction after an episode in Granada that Boscán later recalled. The Portuguese lady Isabel Freyre is often proposed as the model for the Elisa of his verses, though some scholars regard her as largely legendary.

His poetry is usually divided into three phases: an early Spanish one, written in the traditional metres of the cancioneros; an Italian or Petrarchan phase, in which he introduced the eleven-syllable line and the sonnet; and a later Neapolitan phase, more classical, with eclogues, elegies and epistles. His themes include painful love, an idealized nature, Greco-Latin mythology and a carefully crafted musicality. After a brief exile on a Danube island in 1532, caused by the emperor's displeasure at his role in an unauthorized wedding, he settled in Naples and joined the Pontanian Academy. He died in Nice in 1536 from a wound received at Le Muy.

His legacy is considerable. Juan Boscán published his work in 1543, and annotated editions appeared from 1574 onward. Writers such as Fray Luis de León, Saint John of the Cross, Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Góngora and Quevedo read and imitated him. He also became associated with the ideal of the soldier-poet, the balance of arms and letters that held great appeal in the Golden Age.