An Example of Hispanic Originality

One of the advantages that the Hispanist enjoys is the wealth of material in his field that has yet to be brought to light. The literatures of England, France, and Germany have been subjected to the scrutiny of many scholars for many years, and their canons are little short of definitively established. The frontiers of the Hispanist's field of research, on the other hand, have yet to reach any such degree of stability; they continue to expand, frequently taking in large tracts of new and unexplored territory. An example of this is the virtually unknown poetry of Francisco de Aldana (15371578),1 which, except in anthological fragments, has not been re-edited since the sixteenth century. A single sonnet of his suffices to convince us of his originality and power; in fact, the following sonnet is so unique that we are at a loss as to how it can be made to fit into the accepted sonnet tradition, for we find nothing like it in Petrarch or in the Petrarchists of Italy, France, or England

Creativity · Linguistics · Originality · Early Modern Spanish Literature · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Spanish Literature and Culture Studies