THE PRESENCE OF THE CANTICLE OF CANTICLES IN SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY HISPANIC POETRY (SPAIN, MEXICO)

The Song of Songs and its allegorical interpretations constitute a literary tradition that has appeared in European writing for centuries. This investigation of the tradition is limited to religious verse written in Spanish by poets such as Francisco de Quevedo, Benito Arias Montano, Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Fray Luis de Leon, Lope de Vega, Santa Teresa de (')Avila, San Juan de la Cruz, Jose de Valdivieso, and Juan Lopez de (')Ubeda.; The study has two general aims: (1) to present the allegorical meaning of the Song used in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Hispanic poetry and (2) to examine how poets communicate that meaning. Appreciation of the literary quality of these works springs from recognition of how poets shape what they borrow from the Biblical text and how they manipulate the allegory traditionally seen in it. Before readers can see the artistic craftsmanship of poems which use the Song, they must be aware of the pastoral, devotional, and redemptive allegories commonly associated with the Canticle in the Renaissance. This work examines poems that use the Song to refer to these three traditional meanings.; Chapters I and II provide historical and conceptual background for the discussion. Chapter III presents the Renaissance belief that on the literal level the Song of Songs is an epithalamion sung by King Solomon to his Bride. The chapter also examines the tendency of Spanish Renaissance poets to respond to the Canticle as if it were an example of Western pastoral literature. Chapter IV examines poetry that generally treats the Canticle material as an embodiment of the two progressive devotional experiences of meditation and contemplation. Chapter V treats poetry that corresponds to the anagogical level of Scriptural interpretation. Poems examined there display the tendency to present Canticle images and scenes as literary types of significant people and events in sacred history. Chapter VI, an explication of the "Noche escura del alma" by San Juan de la Cruz, illustrates ideas that appear throughout the preceding chapters.