Soledades
Encyclopedia
Luis de Góngora
Luis de Góngora y Argote was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, are widely considered to be the most prominent Spanish poets of their age. His style is characterized by what was called culteranismo, also known as Gongorism...
, composed in 1613 in silva (Spanish strophe)
Silva (Spanish strophe)
Silva, in Spanish poetry, a strophe, laisse consisting of in eleven- and seven- syllable lines: hendecasyllables and heptasyllables , the majority of which are rhymed although there is no fixed order or rhyme, nor is there a fixed number of lines...
in eleven- and seven- syllable lines: hendecasyllables (endecasílabos) and heptasyllables (heptasílabos).
Góngora intended to divide the poem in four parts that were to be called "Soledad de los campos" (Solitude of the fields), "Soledad de las riberas" (Solitude of the riverbanks), "Soledad de las selvas" (Solitude of the forests), and "Soledad del yermo" (Solitude of the wasteland).
However, Góngora only wrote the "dedicatoria al Duque de Béjar" (dedication to the Duke of Béjar
Béjar
Béjar is a town and municipality in the province of Salamanca, western Spain, part of the autonomous community of Castile and León. It lies had a population of 15,016 .-History:...
) and the first two Soledades, the second of which remained unfinished.
From the time of their composition, Soledades inspired a great debate regarding the difficulty of its language and its mythological and erudite references. It was attacked by the Count of Salinas and Juan Martínez de Jáuregui y Aguilar
Juan Martínez de Jáuregui y Aguilar
Juan Chandra de Jáuregui y Aguilar , Spanish poet, scholar and painter in the Siglo de Oro....
(who composed an Antidote against the Soledades). The work, however, was defended by Salcedo Coronel, José Pellicer, Francisco Fernández de Córdoba (Abad de Rute), the Count of Villamediana, Gabriel Bocángel
Gabriel Bocángel
Gabriel Bocángel y Unzueta was a playwright and poet of the Spanish Golden Age. Born in Madrid, he studied at Alcalá de Henares and then served as librarian to Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand. He also served as bookkeeper and chronicler to the king. He participated in various literary contests and...
, and overseas, Juan de Espinosa Medrano
Juan de Espinosa Medrano
Juan de Espinosa Medrano , known as El Lunarejo , was a Peruvian cleric, preacher, author of philosophical and literary tracts, and playwright. The year and place of his birth, as well as his ethnic origins, have been a matter of dispute...
y Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz.
Rafael Alberti
Rafael Alberti
Rafael Alberti Merello was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27....
would later add his own Soledad tercera (Paráfrasis incompleta)