Note note to p. 70 — POESÍAS DE LOS SIGLOS XVI-XVII

GARCILASO DE LA VEGA. This soldier-poet, a native of Toledo, took part in the battle of Pavia, distinguished himself in several succeeding campaigns, and was killed in an assault when but thirty-three years of age. A friend of Boscán, he represents the same Italianizing tendencies in Spanish literature. His verses, along with those of Boscán, were first published by the latter’s widow in 1543. The bulk of his poetry is small—some early villancicos, a few eclogues and elegies, an epistle, several canciones, and between thirty and forty sonnets—but it suffices to show him to be a greater poet than Boscán. But very little of his work is in the old Castilian manner; the Italians are his masters in the important part of his production, although the eclogues show also a Vergilian influence. Cf. Biblioteca de autores españoles, vols. 32 and 42, and see Baist in Gröber’s Grundriss, II, 2, p. 449; Ticknor, I, 446 ff.