| The present study explores works by Gracilaso de la Vega, Gutierre de Cetina, Diego Hurtado the Mendoza, Lope de Vega and Josefa del Castillo, a group of Spanish language writers whose lives span the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth-centuries. The thematic focus is upon sorrow or pain, both as subjective experience in the respective biographies and as a force spurring these authors toward the production of their verse. To this end, several poetic compositions have been examined, applying methodological techniques derived from Damaso Alonso, Jose Maria Diez Borque, Tomas Navarro and Elizabeth Wilhelmsen. The exploration has brought to light that it is not uncommon for men and women undergoing suffering to forge an articulation thereof in the domain of art. In fact, the link between pathos and creativity surfaces throughout the history of art, not only in literary works such as novels, essays, plays and poetry, but as well in productions such as music, painting, sculpture and architecture. |
