Poética elegíaca clásica en el Renacimiento: la elegía IV de Fernando de Herrera

Abstract

Not only has Fernando de Herrera considered elegy from a theoretical standpoint in his Anotaciones, providing in this sense a real chapter of general theory on the genre, but he has also developed it with numerous examples and great success in all its inherent aspects. Thematically, he uses it as a suitable vehicle for expressing the negative side of the relationship with his protector, the Countess of Gelves, Mrs Leonor of Milan. Elegy IV is an excellent example of this, since in it we find the majority of the topics pertaining to the Classic elegy as described by Scaliger, such as subjectivity, structure, rhetoric and the perfect adjustment of the linked tercet or terza rima as the metric unit equivalent to the elegiac distich, applying in it those criteria stated in his Anotaciones that any elegy must fulfil.