‘Dios perdone a Castillejo, que bien habló destas trovas’: Precepts on Love and Poetry in the «Visita» and «Residencia» by Gregorio Silvestre

Abstract

This article analyses the ideas about poetry and love in two poems by Gregorio Silvestre (1520-1569): the Visita de Amor and the Residencia de Amor which were probably written about a decade apart (c. 1555-1565). In the Visita, Silvestre draws on the debate between traditional and Italianate lyric that is set out in texts such as Cristóbal de Castillejo’s Reprehensión, whereas in the Residencia, the poet employs an intertextual game with the Infierno de Amor by Garci Sánchez de Badajoz in order to criticise the kind of suffering love typically found in the most important cancioneros and defends an amatory poetic project exemplified, in particular, by the poets Jorge de Montemayor and Luis Barahona de Soto. Silvestre’s positions in the two texts not only show how his poetry evolved, but also the diversity and ambiguity that the debate between traditional and Petrarchan lyric could give rise to in a mid-sixteenth century poet.