Home
Toronto Iberic
Garcilaso de la Vega and the Material Culture of Renaissance Europe

Garcilaso de la Vega and the Material Culture of Renaissance Europe

by Mary E. Barnard

Published by: University of Toronto Press

Series: Toronto Iberic

Imprint: University of Toronto Press

33 b&w illustrations

Digital download
9781442668492
Published: October 2014

Digital download
9781442668508
Published: November 2014

Description
Contents
Authors
Praise
Awards

Garcilaso de la Vega and the Material Culture of Renaissance Europe examines the role of cultural objects in the lyric poetry of Garcilaso de la Vega, the premier poet of sixteenth-century Spain. As a pioneer of the “new poetry” of Renaissance Europe, aligned with the court, empire, and modernity, Garcilaso was fully attuned to the collection and circulation of luxury artefacts and other worldly goods. In his poems, a variety of objects, including tapestries, paintings, statues, urns, mirrors, and relics participate in lyric acts of discovery and self-revelation, reveal memory as contingent and unstable, expose knowledge of the self as deceptive, and show how history intersects with the ideology of empire.

Mary E. Barnard’s study argues persuasively that the material culture of early sixteenth-century Europe embedded within Garcilaso’s poems offers a key to understanding the interplay between objects and texts that make those works such vibrant inventions.

Acknowledgements

Note on Editions and Translations

List of Illustrations

Introduction: Engaging the Material

Chapter 1: Weaving, Writing, and the Art of Gift-Giving

Tapestry Culture
The Poem as Fabric: Weavers and Writers

Chapter 2: Empire, Memory, and History

An Archive in Cloth
Unearthing Carthage

Chapter 3: Objects of Dubious Persuasion

The Lyre and the Viol(a)
The Shell Boat
A Marble Statue

Chapter 4: The Mirror and the Urn

At the Fountain of Narcissus
The Urn’s Tale

Chapter 5: Eros at Material Sites

Weaver Nymphs in Crystal Palaces
Daphne’s Scenographic Body
Mapping the Humoral Interior
Tablet of the Soul

Chapter 6: Staging Objects in Pastoral

Falling in Love with a Statue
Mourning Becomes Material

Conclusion

Notes

Works Cited

Index

Mary E. Barnard is an associate professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University.

‘A vibrant, truly scholarly study that deserves pride of place in any collection (library or personal)… Essential.’
~K.M Sibbald, Choice Magazine vol 52:12:2015

‘Barnard’s studies of Garcilaso’s Naples period are excellent approaches to his politics and his representations of emotional states…. Barnard’s book is worthy of careful attention of anyone interested in Renaissance verse.’
~Eric Clifford Graf, Renaissance Quarterly vol 69:01:2016

‘Barnard’s book will prove to be of great interest and benefit to students of early modern poetry by offering a timely exploration of how objects allow a poetic speaker to constitute himself as a subject.’
~Felipe Valencia, Symposium: A Quarterly Journal in Modern Literature vol 71:02:2017

‘This book is an articulate and well-informed view of the poems that defined Garcilaso… Barnard’s sophisticated interpretations make an important contribution to our understanding of an author not coincidentally dubbed ‘principe de los peotas españoles.’
~Antonio J. Arraiza Rivera, Bulletin of Spanish Studies vol 94:2017

Outstanding Academic Title awarded by Choice (2015) - Winner