Garcilaso

Garcilaso de la Vega, commonly known simply as Garcilaso, was a Spanish Renaissance poet whose verse helped transform Spanish lyric poetry in the early 16th century. Born in Toledo around 1503 into a noble Castilian family, he pursued a military career in the service of Charles V and fought in Italy, where he encountered Italian humanists whose poetry he admired and sought to adapt for Castilian readers.

On returning to Spain, Garcilaso collaborated with the poet Juan Boscán, and together they introduced Italianate forms and techniques into Spanish verse. He played a key role in popularizing the hendecasyllabic line and refined rhetorical craft, helping to lay the foundations for modern Spanish lyric poetry. His work encompasses sonnets, songs, and pastoral eclogues, often exploring themes of love, nature, and the tension between ideal beauty and worldly reality.

Garcilaso’s poetry circulated in manuscript during his lifetime and was published posthumously, shaping the development of the Spanish Renaissance canon. His innovations influenced later generations of poets, contributing to the evolution of the sonnet and the broader Spanish canon of lyric poetry. Today he is regarded as one of the central figures in the early Golden Age of Spanish literature, whose precise craftsmanship and fusion of Italian stylistic elements with Castilian language left a lasting imprint on Spanish poetry.

Note: The name Garcilaso can also refer to Inca Garcilaso de la Vega (1539–1616), a Peruvian chronicler and writer, distinct from the Spanish poet Garcilaso de la Vega.