Garcilaso de la Vega and the material culture of Renaissance Europe / Mary E. Barnard.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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.

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CHOICE Review

Barnard (Penn State) casts exciting new light on a much-studied figure of the Spanish Renaissance. Highlighting how Garcilaso incorporated material culture into his sophisticated Neapolitan poems, the author touts the poems as powerful exemplars of the "new poetry" at the beginning of European modernity. The claim is bold but impeccably substantiated. In a novel interpretation of Garcilaso's worldview, Barnard points up the nexus between object, text, and memory in a fascinating exploration of the psychology of the self, engagement with a wide cultural heritage, and the interplay between orality and writing. Eschewing the usual concerns of chronology and genre, Barnard begins with Eclogue III and concludes with Eclogue I; examines tapestries, urns, paintings, statues, musical instruments, and weapons; and indicates how history intersects with the ideology of empire. Well-chosen photographs of specific artifacts in the poetry enhance further this amazing and engaging text. A vibrant, truly scholarly study that deserves pride of place in any collection (library or personal), this is a book for those interested in Spanish and Renaissance art, literature, and history and those curious about the formation of culture. Summing Up: Essential. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers. --Kathleen M. Sibbald, McGill University