Biblioteca de la Guitarra y Cuerda Pulsada

This  dissertation,  about  the  music  of  Garcilaso  de  la  Vega’s  poetry  and  his  poetry  in music,  draws  from  the  fields  of  philology,  linguistics,  and  musicology  to  provide  an interdisciplinary  perspective  of  the  topic  embedded  in  two  interrelated  contexts: Hispanic/Neapolitan Renaissance poetry and music.

Garcilaso,  a  sixteenth-century courtier and  soldier, travelled extensively to serve  in  war especially in Italy. This  cross-cultural contact led to the adaptation of Italian poetic forms and meters.  Garcilaso  fused  imitated  forms  with  the  lyricism  of  his  Spanish  language.  Scholars repeatedly praised his poetry for mastery of form and style, and  a finest sense of musicality. And thus  the  question:  What  do  critics  mean  by  musicality?  And  how  does  musicality  serve  the
literary medium in the construct of meaning?  Few  scholars have  investigated Garcilaso’s lyric expression.  Moreover,  considering  that  humanist  imitation  of  the  classics  extended  to  their theories of language as a means  to convey their ideology, and given that Renaissance composers sought  the  finest  vernacular  poetry  for  their  musical  settings,  in  the  second  part  I  pose  the question: To what extent did Garcilaso’s poetry and the sixteenth-century musico-poetic context intersect?

For the first  argument, I construe musicality, in Bakhtinian terms, as the means by which the poetic voice conveys meaning and establishes a dialogue with the listener and other texts. I thus examine the tapestry of poetic linguistic elements that heightens the etymological meaning of  words.  For  the  next  section,  I  survey  the  complex  tapestry  of  Hispanic/Neapolitan  dialogic genres to understand how Garcilaso’s poetry intersected with the musico-poetic landscape.
My findings reveal that the  epithet ‘musical’ in Garcilaso’s poetry,  is substantiated by a linguistic  soundscape  consisting  of  tangible  elements  embedded  in  every  fibre  of  the  poetic structures  herein  analyzed.  In  the  second  part  of  the  study,  Garcilaso’s  poetry  emerges  in  the music collections by Alonso Mudarra, Diego Pisador, Esteban Daza, Pere Alberch Vila, Pedro and  Francisco  Guerrero,  Juan  Vásquez,  the  Italian  composer  Giulio  Severino,  and  in  Italian anonymous  manuscripts,  such  as  Magliabechiano  XIX  (Florence,  Italy).  This  dissertation includes a CD containing Renaissance musical settings of Garcilaso’s poetry, includ ing a new transcription of the Magliabechiano musical setting.

The Music in Garcilaso de la Vega’s Poetry and his Poetry in Music