Herrera's Anotaciones II: The Poet's Eye

In the preceding section we examined Herrera's Anotaciones in terms of their overall decentering technique applied to Garcilaso's poems as canonical texts, focusing on the source citations and thematic glosses. Herrera's explicit comments on literary theory also deserve examination; while many are derived from classical and Italian sources, his expression of these ideas in Spanish places them in the context of tendencies we have been examining since Nebrija. In this section we will focus on Herrera's emphasis on sensual, and particularly visual, imagery as it relates to his theory of metaphor; on his theory of translation and its importance for the illustration of the language and for literary history; and on his genre theory and its relation to the translatio .

One of Herrera's first glosses deals with metaphor. Garcilaso's sonnet 2 reads, "Mis lágrimas han sido derramadas / donde la sequedad y el aspereza / dieron mal fruto dellas, y mi suerte" (My tears have been spilt where drought and harshness yielded a bad harvest from them and my fortune, 9–11). Herrera draws the reader's attention to what he calls this "traslación de la agricultura" (318) and explains that "traslación," or metaphor, is the most common of figures. He begins with a linguistic and philosophical exposition of the need for metaphor: things have names, and while words or

names are but signs for things, words can also be made to refer to something else; the Greeks called this "tropos de la mudanza del entendimiento, y Aristóteles del verbo metaphérou que es trasfiero, metáforas, y los latinos traslaciones" (tropes of changed meaning, and Aristotle, from the verb metaphérou , which means transfer, metaphors, and the Romans called them traslaciones , 318). Figures of this type are almost always pleasing because they result in brevity instead of "revueltas y torcimientos de vanas palabras" (twisting and turning of worthless words, 319) and because the resulting expressions are more unusual and interesting. The use of metaphor can thus be preferable to the use of the name itself, as long as the virtue of clarity is observed and the connection is immediately apparent; clarity results in an intellectual fusion between the writer and the audience such that "el que oye va llevado con la cogitación y pensamiento a otra parte" (he who hears is transported by this thinking to another place, 319).

Yet although metaphor is consequently an intellectual process, it is also a sensual one; and although Herrera conceives of metaphors springing from any of the senses, he gives the place of honor to visual figures:

Porque el olor de la cortesanía, la blandura y terneza de la humanidad, el murmurio del mar, y la dulzura de la oración, son deducidas de los demás sentidos. Pero las [translaciones] de los ojos son mucho más agudas y de mayor eficacia y vehemencia, porque ponen casi en la presencia del ánimo las cosas que no pudimos mirar ni ver. (319)

For the odor of courtiership, the softness and tenderness of humanity, the murmur of the sea, and the sweetness of speech are derived from the other senses. But those [metaphors] derived from eyesight are much more acute and of greater efficacy and vehemence because they almost place before the soul things we cannot see.

Metaphors were first employed out of necessity, to discuss things that had no name, but because they embellished an oration, they came to be employed for their own sake. The trope has enormous potential, as almost any word can be transferred to a new "place," while the only inherent danger, easily avoided, is taking words from places that are not in themselves noble. Moreover, because the purpose of a metaphor is to clarify, the words should be taken from a

neighboring field: "[C]onviene que la traslación sea vengonzosa, que significa de cosa cercana y fácil, porque se hace áspera cuando se deduce de lugar muy apartado; o cuando es tan oscura, que tiene necesidad de exposición" (It is desirable that the comparison be becoming, which means from something proximate and simple, for it becomes harsh when derived from a distant place, or when it is so obscure that it needs to be explained, 320). Naturally, a certain moderation should be exercised in the quantity of metaphors in a single composition, but there is no absolute limit. Herrera concludes by drawing distinctions between metaphor and simile and between metaphor and catachresis, while explaining the relation between metaphor and allegory.

Herrera's account of the origin of metaphor extends the privileged position this figure held in Spanish Petrarchist theory and practice.^[23] For Herrera, metaphor is not merely an ornament like the other figures, but one with a special heuristic value, for it allows us to talk about things that have no names and to establish relations not previously perceived. Herrera's views thus constitute a secular variant of the metaphor theory of Fray Luis de León and St. John of the Cross.^[24] As a consequence, clarity is essential, for the very purpose of metaphor is to enlighten. Herrera amplifies the importance of clarity in his note on Garcilaso's sonnet "Hermosas ninfas." After praising the splendor of the poem (342), he goes on to assert that its clarity results from the placement of words in an order that lends itself to comprehension. Herrera proceeds:

Es importantísima la claridad en el verso; y si falta en él, se pierde toda la gracia, y la hermosura de la poesía . . . porque las palabras son imágenes de los pensamientos. Debe ser la claridad que nace de ellas luciente, suelta, libre, blanda y entera; no oscura, no intrincada, no forzada, no áspera y despedazada. (ibid.)

Clarity is extremely important in poetry; if it is lacking, all the grace and all the beauty in the poem are lost . . . for as words are images of thoughts, the clarity that comes from them should be resplendent, loose, free, soft, and complete, not dark, not intricate, not forced, not harsh, not dissociated.

Yet the term is itself a visual metaphor, and by emphasizing it Herrera further reveals the priority of sight in his system of literary

aesthetics. As important as its meaning is, it is only one of many visual ingredients in Herrera's aesthetic vocabulary, and by associating it with metaphor he again highlights the visual and conceptual elements of the latter.^[25]

This concern with the visual may in part be due to Neoplatonic theory, for Herrera stresses its importance in glossing terms such as love (328), spirits (336), and beauty (hermosura , 367), all of which are explained in terms of sight perception. Similarly, the efficacy of metaphor was explained in terms of placing the previously unseen before the reader's eye. The concern with eyesight leads Herrera to an equivalence between the poet and the painter, as in his gloss on Garcilaso's representation, in the first elegy, of the Tormes as a river-god surrounded by nymphs. Blurring the distinction between ekphrastic description of artistic works and actual painting, Herrera alludes to representations of river-gods with the heads and horns of a bull. He begins by using the verb fingir ("los fingían los antiguos con cabezas de bueyes o toros con cuernos" [the ancients pretended they had heads of oxen or bulls, along with horns]); he then uses pintar in an ambiguous manner that may refer either to painting or to poetry ("y por otra razón lo pintan con cuernos" [and for other reasons they paint it with horns]); and finally he uses pintar in a totally metaphoric way with reference to a poetic text ("Claudiano . . . pinta diferentemente de esta tristeza al Po" [Claudian . . . paints the Po differently without this sadness], 432–33). Not surprisingly, Herrera's diction here echoes that of Garcilaso's description of the nymphs' tapestries in the third eclogue. Herrera's slip into the same figural language betrays his Horatian concept of the poet as a painter of scenes for a reader's visual imagination, but it again underscores the primacy of the visual as the foundation of poetry.^[26]

This emphasis on the visual does not mean that Herrera was unconcerned with matters of sound; indeed, several entries in the commentary are devoted exclusively to the sound of certain lines.^[27] For example, he glosses Garcilaso's line "y si no le fabrico y le renuevo" (elegy 2, line 163), commenting that vowels sound more sweetly than consonants, for there is no one who does not understand that the frequent and dense gathering of vowels can lead to a long phrase, but also one that is overstuffed and degenerate; the joining or collision of vowels is called synaloepha. Elsewhere he discusses the appropriateness of enjambment to the hendecasyllable. But just

as he rejects hyperbaton, one of the very licenses fifteenth-century theorists such as Encina had particularly endorsed, so too he rejects the aural aesthetics of octosyllabic poetry, in terms that recall Boscán's "A la duquesa de Soma":

Verdad es, que el número mueve y deleita, y causa la admiración; pero nace el número de la frasis. . . . ¿Qué cosa hay más sin arte y sin juicio, y que con más importuna molestia canse las orejas, que oyen, que trabar sílabas y palabras siempre con un sonido y tenor? (420)

It is true that meter moves and delights, and causes admiration; but meter should result from the phrasing. . . . What is less artful and discriminating, and with more aggravation wearies ears that hear, than always to bind syllables and words with the same sound and tenor?

Elsewhere we see Herrera, even when describing the effects of sound, resorting to the vocabulary of sight, as when he refers to "aquella viva claridad y elegancia de luz con que resplandecen en las orejas" (that lively clarity and elegance of light with which they shine in the ears, 511). The effect here is not only synesthesia but also an inadvertent revelation of the position of sight and sound in his aesthetic hierarchy.

Herrera's distinctions among visual, aural, and logical techniques is reflected in his theory of literary translation. Herrera turns to this topic in the context of the situation of Spanish in comparison to other languages, an issue that arises in several of the later entries. Commenting on Garcilaso's description of a hunt in the second eclogue, Herrera points out that the passage is a near translation of the eighth prosa of Sannazaro's Arcadia . Instead of criticizing Garcilaso's plagiarism, as Prete Jacopín implies (131), Herrera deems the translation so well done that it demonstrates the capacity of Spanish to express any topic that has previously been expressed in another language. Nonetheless, each language has its own qualities, which are difficult to translate:

[M]as hay algunas cosas dichas con tanta viveza y propriedad y significación en cada particular y nativo lenguaje . . . que aunque las hagan vecinas y moradoras de otra habla, nunca retienen la gracia de su primera naturaleza. Porque tienen algunas propriedades y virtudes la hermosura de la lengua toscana, la gracia de la francesa, la

agudeza y magnificencia de la española, que trocadas con las extrañas, aunque tengan el sentido, pierden aquella flexión y medida de palabras o nümeros. . . . Y así quieren los que saben, que el que imita no proponga tanto decir lo que los otros dijeron, como lo que no dijeron. (ibid.)

But some things are said with such vividness and propriety and meaning in each particular and native language, that even if made residents of a neighboring speech, they never retain the grace of their first nature. For the handsomeness of Italian, the grace of French, and the wit and magnificence of Spanish have their own properties and virtues, but if exchanged with other languages, that flexibility and measure of the words or numbers is lost. . . . And thus the wise wish that the imitator not attempt to say what others said, but what they did not say.

Herrera here joins the perennial Renaissance debate over the efficacy of translation; it is somewhat surprising, in view of the many translations that he himself offers, to see him come down against the possibility of translations accurately reflecting the originals, even though this was the position of most Renaissance theorists who concerned themselves with literary translation in the abstract. Yet this seemingly contradictory appraisal of Garcilaso can be resolved if one reviews the criteria for success. Spanish is as good as any other language, and there is nothing expressible in another language that cannot be said also in Spanish. Concepts have an existence that is independent of the expression in any one language, and they are consequently translatable in spite of each language's having its own unique virtues. Herrera's description of these virtues—the beauty of Italian, the grace of French, the wit of Spanish—has a Castiglionian air about it, not least in its lack of specificity. Thus, along with most Renaissance theorists, Herrera sees the possibility for translating the res but not the verba; he differs from many others in not restricting res to philosophical and scientific writings, but positing a literary res that can be translated.^[28] This is precisely what Garcilaso does with the passage from Sannazaro, restating it and imitating it in Spanish. But he does not attempt to reproduce it exactly in Spanish, for the special qualities of the original, which cannot be matched even in neighboring languages, are associated not with matter but with the character of the language.

Herrera also comes close to defining imitation as a form of trans-

lation, as when he says of Garcilaso's first elegy, "esta elegía es traducida, aunque acrecentada mucho, y variada hermosamente" (this elegy is translated, though much augmented and freely altered; 450). Here Herrera restates the value of innovativeness to the good imitator and transfers it to the translator; typically, he also illustrates the principle through the structure of the note itself. As usual, he begins by giving the text of the model, but then comments,

Bien sé que son molestas a los que saben las traducciones desnudas de artificio, y sin algún ornato . . . pero no atiendo en esta parte satisfacer sus gustos, sino los de los hombres que carecen de la noticia de estas cosas; y por esta causa vuelvo en español los versos peregrinos de nuestra lengua. (452)

I know well that these translations, naked of artifice and without any ornament, are a bother to those who know [the original languages] . . . but I do not attempt in this part to satisfy their taste, rather that of those who have no knowledge of these things; and for this reason I turn into Spanish those poems which are foreign to our language.

Whatever pedants may think, translations will always have a role to play as long as Spaniards remain ignorant of foreign literature; Herrera thus sets up his own translation, which follows, as an alternate to Garcilaso's, its presence justified on the same grounds of the translator's license. While Herrera's focus on intervernacular translation between related languages recalls Boscán and Garcilaso, his precision about translation theory stands in contrast to their prefaces to the Cortegiano translation (see the first section of chapter 2). Boscán's emphasis had been on the reception of the subject matter and on the desirability of thereby illuminating Spanish literature; Garcilaso's, on Boscán's skill in remaining faithful to the original while maintaining a pure Castilian style. Although Herrera praises Garcilaso's transformation of Sannazaro, it is not for its fidelity to the original, and much less for enriching the Spanish language with a rendition of a bird hunt; rather, his focus is on the technical and philosophical issues of literary translation.

A bit farther on Herrera takes up the problem of translating scientific res with no Spanish equivalents. Although Castiglione, through Canossa, had defended the use of neologisms in an ever-mutable language, Boscán and Garcilaso had come out against them as signs

of affectation. Herrera, by contrast, is positive about their use, for "lícito es a los escritores de una lengua valerse de las voces de otra" (it is legitimate for writers in one language to use words from another, 471). Thus unlike Boscán, who had sacrificed specificity in seeking to use only Spanish words to render Castiglione's Italian, Herrera recommends the borrowing of words from the source language: "Divídese en dos especies la formación de los vocablos nuevos: por necesidad para exprimir pensamientos de Teología y Filosofía y las cosas nuevas que se hallan ahora, y por ornamento" (The formation of new words can be divided into two kinds: for the expression of philosophical and theological ideas and of the new things that are now being found, and for ornament, 527). Naturally, he is more interested in the latter of these processes, in which words are borrowed for poetic effect. In language similar to Castiglione's, Herrera recommends the enrichment of Spanish by borrowing words from ancient and foreign languages, and justifies this effort by pointing to the example of the Romans and the way in which they enriched Latin by borrowing even from the barbarians.^[29] Languages mature slowly, and none suddenly attain perfection; it is legitimate to engender new tropes, for thus was Latin enriched. Herrera would allow the use of neologisms in Spanish because it is a living language, in contrast to Latin, whose vocabulary survives only through those relics of ancient writers which still exist. Garcilaso himself incorporated Latinisms and Italianisms into his poetry, and others should not fear to do likewise: "Apártese este rústico miedo de nuestro ánimo; sigamos el ejemplo de aquellos antiguos varones que enriquecieron el sermón romano con las voces griegas y peregrinas y con las bárbaras mismas" (Let this rustic fear flee from our souls; let us follow the example of those ancient noblemen who enriched Latin discourse with words that were Greek and foreign and even barbarian, 525). By polarizing linguistic attitudes into those of "rústicos" and those of "varones," Herrera makes the same distinction as Morales, though replacing "booty," despojos , with "words," voces . The concept of linguistic booty resurfaces, moreover, in the next page of the commentary, where Herrera argues that there is no language that cannot stand to be enriched "con los más estimados despojos de Italia y Grecia, y de los otros reinos peregrinos, puede[se] vestir y aderezar su patria y amplialla con hermosura" (with the most esteemed spoils of Italy and Greece and other foreign

realms, can his country dress, adorn, and amplify itself with beauty, 526), as long as one has art and judgment. Similarly, he argues that one author's not using a word does not mean that others cannot, and thus, in effect, that there are no canonical linguistic models.

This claim, ironically, allows Herrera to defend Garcilaso's use of orejas instead of the more elevated oídos , complaining about the tyranny "que nos obliga a conservar estos advertimientos, nacidos no de razón o causa alguna, sino de sola presunción y arrogancia" (that forces us to heed these strictures, born not from reason or cause, but from presumption and arrogance, 522). Yet by arguing that these strictures should no longer be applicable, now that Spaniards "osamos navegar el anchísimo Océano y descubrir los tesoros de que estuvieron ajenos nuestros padres" (dare to navigate the wide ocean and to discover the treasures that were unknown to our fathers, 522–23), Herrera reverts to the idea of a cultural backwardness that lags behind imperial accomplishments; implicit in these remarks is an admission that Spanish is not as rich as he had earlier made it out to be, and that it still needs to strive for greater richness. Thus the principle of linguistic freedom concords with the thrust of the entire commentary, which is precisely that, great as Garcilaso's achievement—and by extension the linguistic tools of his day—may have been, Spanish should not stagnate but aspire to still greater achievements on both the literary and the linguistic levels. And those who have the duty to effect just this improvement are the poets, who

hablan en otra lengua y no son las mismas cosas que trata el poeta que las que el orador, ni unas mismas leyes y observaciones. . . . [E]s la poesía abundantísima y exuberante y rica en todo, libre y de su derecho y jurisdicción sola sin sujeción alguna y maravillosamente idónea en el ministerio de la lengua y copia de palabras por sí. (527)

speak in another language, for the poet does not speak of the same things as the orator, nor does he follow the same laws and observances. . . . Poetry is most abundant and exuberant and rich in everything, free and by its right and jurisdiction separate, without any subordination, in itself marvelously independent in administering the language and the wealth of words.

Thus just as Herrera's theory about the possibility of literary translation is tied to his interest in visual and sensual imagery, his interest

in its effect is connected to the question of enriching the language through neologisms, as the state is enriched by foreign wealth. Just as a political aristocracy rules the country, so too a poetic aristocracy must exercise hegemony over the language, if the translatio is to be realized. Once again, the key issues are the extent of Garcilaso's accomplishments, and the need for their continuation and extension.^[30]

The translatio in turn serves as a foundation for Herrera's genre theories. Herrera has notes on all of the major genres employed by Garcilaso: the sonnet, the canción , the elegy, the eclogue, and the "estanzas o rimas octavas" of the third eclogue.^[31] In all cases, one of his principal concerns is to relate these modern genres, as much as possible, to classical equivalents and to account for their use by Garcilaso in modern Spain. Thus at the head of the first note he presents the sonnet as the modern heir of the epigram, the ode, and the elegy, fully capable of treating all subjects and of being ornamented. Indeed, it is harder than the epigram because its length is limited and because, in addition to meter, the poet has to concern himself with rhyme, formal considerations that can place constraints on the use of ornamentation. This definition by analogy and contrast is not historicized until much later, when Herrera recounts the form's modern origins: Petrarch was "el primero cue los labró bien y levantó en la más alta cumbre de la acabada hermosura y fuerza perfecta de la poesía" (the first who forged them well, and raised them to the highest peak of finished beauty and perfect force of poetry, 309–10), followed, after a gap of some centuries, by Sannazaro and Bembo who, though judged harsh and affected in his diction and style, was the first true expert on the flowers that adorn Latin and Italian poetry (311).^[32] In his gloss on the canción , Herrera identifies it with classical lyric, giving a long history that traces it from the Greek odes of Anacreon, Pindar, and Sappho through Horace, but without mentioning the more immediate Italian or Provençal antecedents or the fifteenth-century Spanish genre. The elegy too is traced back to its classical roots, with particular praise for Tibullus and, as noted, an account of the dark age that set in after the fall of Rome to the barbarians, while the eclogue is likewise characterized by references to ancient poets such as Daphnis, Moscus, Bion, Theocritus, and of course Virgil. Herrera sees Petrarch and Boccaccio as the first to have written eclogues since antiquity, although their eclogues, as well as those of Pontano, are not worth

remembering (475). Instead, Sannazaro is singled out as the greatest modern Italian writer of eclogues, while Boccaccio is credited with inventing the rima octava , in which he was succeeded by Poliziano and Ariosto.

This accumulation of classical and Italian poets is not meant, however, to heighten his Spanish readers' awareness of Italian literature, for on the contrary Herrera feels that the Spanish writers of his day have given themselves over too greatly to admiration of the Tuscans:

Pero no sé cómo sufrirán los nuestros, que con tanta admiración celebran [más] la lengua, el modo del decir, la gracia y los pensamientos de los escritores toscanos, que ose yo afirmar, que la lengua común de Españia. . . . Porque me parece, que más fáscilmente condescenderán con mi opinión los italianos, que tienen algún conocimiento de la nuestra, que los españoles, que ponen más cuidado en la inteligencia de la lengua extranjera, que de la suya. (312)

I do not know how ours can bear it, for with so much more admiration they praise the language, mode of speaking, grace, and thoughts of the Tuscan writers than, I dare say, the common language of Spain. . . . For it seems to me that those Italians who have knowledge of our language would more easily coincide with my opinion than would Spaniards, who place more care in the knowledge of a foreign language than of their own.

Here, in language similar to Morales's, Herrera castigates his fellow poets for neglecting their native vernacular. Yet that this neglect does not take the form of poetic composition in the classical languages, but, instead, of excessive imitation of Italian, underlines the canonical and classical status that the Italians have received. Underlying this passage is Herrera's variation on the basic trope of the Spanish Renaissance: the lists of antecedents in each genre exist precisely because they are Garcilaso's antecedents, and thus he emerges as the great mediator who imported and legitimized these foreign forms, the originator rather than the culmination of the translatio .

Herrera's comments on these genres extend beyond their history to their intrinsic features; while using them as a way to differentiate himself from the aristocratic, Castiglione-based aesthetics of Garcilaso and Boscán, he also takes advantage of the succession of genres to present a full-scale prescription for lyric poetry as practiced in

Renaissance Spain. For the sonnet he provides one of the earliest formal descriptions in Spanish, noting that it is composed of fourteen hendecasyllabic lines divided into two quatrains and two tercets, with one set of rhymes in the quatrains and another in the tercets. These requirements make it difficult for the inexperienced poet: because of the poem's concentrated nature any mistake stands out, and Herrera recommends that its theme should be a single "sentencia ingeniosa y aguda" (thought both ingenious and sharp, 308), avoiding obscurity but not descending into facility. Indeed, in language that specifically counters the recommendations of Valdés, Boscán, and Garcilaso, Herrera condemns the identification of writing with speech:

[E]n este pecado caen muchos, que piensan acabar una grande hazaña cuando escriben de la manera que hablan; como si no fuese diferente el descuido y llaneza, que demanda el sermón común, de la observación, que pide el artificio y cuidado de quien escribe. No reprehendo la facilidad, sino la afectación della. (308; see Almeida 103)

Many fall into this sin, thinking they have accomplished a great deed when they write as they speak, as if there were no difference between the carelessness and plainness called for in common speech, and the degree of observation called for by the skill and care of someone who writes. I do not reprove true facility, but only its affectation.

Not surprisingly, clarity is recommended, without contortions to accommodate the rhyme, but equally reprehensible are the lack of vigor, the use of low language, and having the rhyme dictate the matter rather than the other way around. Latin poets enjoyed greater freedom because modern poetry, in addition to meter, requires rhyme, while the rhythm of the hendecasyllable is not as malleable as it might seem, for any eleven syllables do not necessarily constitute a line of verse.

Herrera's comments on the sonnet introduce both the formal and the thematic requirements of lyric poetry. This course is continued in his remarks on the canción , which, as already noted, Herrera identifies with the very roots of lyricism itself. To Herrera, this is above all the genre of love; and, citing Anacreon as one of the first great lyric poets, he invests it with the Greek poet's sensuality:

[E]s su poesía toda amatoria, que como dice Pausanias en la Ática , fue el primero, después de Safo, que gastó gran parte de sus versos en declarar sus amores. Porque nació sólo para juegos y cantos y danzas y besos y convites, todo entregado en deleites sensuales y de gula. Mas aunque tiene viles y abatidas consideraciones y deseos, no se puede dejar de conceder que dice con mucho donaire, y que en aquella poesía mélica no esté todo lleno de miel y dulzura y gracia entre todos los griegos y latinos y vulgares. (392)

His poetry is all about love, for as Pausanias said in the Attica , he was the first, after Sappho, who spent the greater part of his poems in declaring his love. For he was born only for games and songs and dances and kisses and banquets, completely given over to the pleasures of the senses and of the palate. But although he has low and vile considerations and desires, one cannot but concede that he speaks with elegance, and that Melic poetry is not all full of sweetness and honey and grace, among all the other Greeks, Romans, and vernacular [writers].

In contrast, Pindar is given relatively short shrift, while Sappho is praised as a woman of great spirit, admirable in the declaration of her passions and secret love (393). In contrast to Greek, Latin literature was relatively weak in lyric poets save for Horace, who alone is worthy of being read; yet Herrera's comments about him are restrained, with more space devoted to an ambivalent condemnation of Catullus's love poetry. The note concludes with the observation that a canción can be subdivided into stanzas, whose length, verses, and rhyme are consistent but free for the poet to determine, and that it is usually concluded with a shorter epilogue.

Herrera returns to the topic of love poetry in the note on the elegy; after analyzing the origin of its name and discussing its history in ancient Rome, Herrera concludes that it is a very flexible genre, capable of absorbing a great variety of attitudes:

Y porque los escritores de versos amorosos o esperan, o desesperan, o deshacen sus pensamientos, y inducen otros nuevos, y los mudan y pervierten, o ruegan, o se quejan, o alegran, o alaban la hermosura de su dama, o explican su propria vida, y cuentan sus fortunas con los demás sentimientos del ánimo, que ellos declaran en varias ocasiones, conviniendo que este género de poesía sea mixto . . . y por esto no se deben juzgar todos por un ejemplo, ni ser comprendidos en el rigor de una misma censura. (417)

For the writers of these love poems either hope or despair, or undo their thoughts and introduce new ones, and change and pervert them, or beg, or complain, or rejoice, or praise the beauty of their beloved, or justify their own lives, and tell of their fortunes along with the other sentiments of the soul, which they declare on various occasions, for poetry of this type should be varied . . . and for this reason all should not be judged by a single example, nor included in the severity of a single censure.

Although this is a fair description of Roman elegy and not incorrect in pointing out the classical genre's variety, the comment could also serve as a definition of Petrarchist lyric. This coincidence of course is not accidental: the Roman elegists were among the principal sources of influence on Petrarch himself, and the connection is strengthened when Herrera identifies terza rima as the modern metrical equivalent of the elegiac couplet, and Dante and Petrarch as its chief practitioners. Yet coming after the notes on the sonnet and the canción , these remarks further Herrera's exposition of the historical link between the modern lyric and the Petrarchist model. Thus while the poet's principal themes should be his hope and his despair, the undoing of reason, praise of the beloved's beauty, and the like, infinite variety is also possible in love poetry, and no single model should be canonical. In the context of Herrera's own time, this is not a warning against the unique imitation of Tibullus, Propertius, or Ovid (none of them hypercanonical), nor even of Petrarch, but of Garcilaso, as singled out by El Brocense and Morales.

Just as Herrera's remarks on the canción and the elegy focus on subject matter as much as on form, so too do his comments on the eclogue. These have fountains with the sweetest water, and are full of trees with the largest fruit and plants and vines of incredible abundance (473). Thus Herrera identifies richness and fertility, metaphors of copia , as the genre's distinguishing characteristics, rather than the pleasantness of the Arcadian place. Again, too, love is the principal subject of the poems:

La materia de esta poesía es las cosas y obras de los pastores, mayormente sus amores; pero simples y sin daño, no funestos con rabia de celos, no manchados con adulterios; competencias de rivales, pero sin muerte y sangre. Los dones que dan a sus amadas, tienen más estimación por la voluntad, que por el precio. (474)

The subject of these poems is the possessions and works of shepherds, particularly their loves; but these should be simple and without harm, not doleful with furious jealousy, nor stained with adultery; with competitions among rivals, but with neither death nor blood. The gifts they give to their beloveds should be more valued for their intention than for their worth.

In eclogues, diction should always be elegant; words should taste of the earth and the fields, but not without gracefulness, nor should they be ignorant or archaic. Rather, rusticity should always be tempered with a vocabulary appropriate to tender sentiments. Thus, Virgil and Sannazaro are praised, while Mantuan and Encina are censured; here, above all, Garcilaso has matched the achievements of his predecessors.

Nearly absent from Herrera's poetic theory is any discussion of the epic. Because of the commentary's paratextual status, the genres that Herrera defines are necessarily those that Garcilaso employed, and the near identification of lyric with love poetry is a result of what he and his significant predecessors made of it. However much Herrera may want to decenter Garcilaso, he stands between the Sevillian and the earlier poets, a lens that focuses as much as a barrier that impedes. Thus Herrera's neglect of the epic in the Anotaciones is not just the result of a rejection of Aristotelian theory, but a nearly inevitable consequence of the fact that Garcilaso himself did not practice it.^[33] Moreover, because Garcilaso and Petrarch largely neglected the epic, at least in the vernacular, in favor of lyric, for Herrera the lyric takes the place of epic in the hierarchy of genres, as can be seen in his notes on these lines from the dedication of Garcilaso's first eclogue to Pedro de Toledo, viceroy of Naples:

el árbol de vitoria
que ciñe estrechamente
tu glorïosa frente
dé lugar a la yedra que se planta.
(35–38)

Let the tree of victory that tightly girds your glorious forehead give way to the planted ivy.

Glossing the words el arbol , Herrera declares that the garland on the viceroy's brow must have been the laurel, which in ancient times

had crowned military heroes and epic poets. Thus he opens the note with a quote from Petrarch, "Arbor vittoriosa triunfale, / onor d'imperadori et di poeti" (Victorious triumphal tree, the honor of emperors and of poets, Rime sparse 263.1–2). Yet standing at the head of the note, these lines, from the foremost modern lyric poet and devotee of the laurel, mark the historical transition from epic to lyric. Imitating Garcilaso's instructions to the viceroy (doff the laurel, put on the ivy), Herrera's note proceeds through an account of the poetic attributes of the laurel, the myrtle (used in ancient times by love poets), and finally the ivy, "de los líricos" (of the lyric poets, 477). This plant is also the most appropriate for learned poets, for "es de fuera verde y dentro amarilla; y por eso coronan de ella a los poetas, amarillos del estudio, mas su gloria, y la que celebran, florida y verde mucho tiempo" (it is green on the outside and yellow within; and for this reason it crowned those poets who were pallid from their studies, while their glory, and that of whom they praise, is always green and in bloom, ibid.). Herrera goes on to explain the sacred associations of the ivy: Jupiter wore it after defeating the Titans, and when mixed with wine it leads not to a vile drunkenness but to a near frenzy; the plant is named after a dancer who died in the course of performing for Bacchus, and who was subsequently transformed into a vine. By shifting the topic of a note ostensibly glossing the laurel, from military heroism and the epic to lyric poetry and art, Herrera echoes Garcilaso's advice (shed one garland in favor of another) but also traces, allegorically, what he sees as the course of literary history. In fact, Herrera had ample opportunities to digress on the nature of epic, such as the notes on the second half of the second eclogue, on the rima octava , and on the other poems in which Garcilaso declares a preference for love poetry over epic poetry (such as the fifth canción and the third eclogue). Herrera's avoidance of the topic must therefore be taken as both deliberate and significant.^[34] His most "epic" note is that on "el osado español," discussed in the preceding section; in the context of Herrera's poetic theory as a whole, it becomes clear that the glory that poets will bring to Spain is not just parallel to, but distinct from, that of her military victories. Spaniards must take on Italians not on that military battlefield where they have already been victorious, but on the literary battlefield of the lyric poem.

To Elias Rivers, Herrera represents a retreat from the Garcilasan

ideal of indirect poetics, back to the systematic, Nebrijan mold (see "Some Ideas" and "L'humanisme linguistique"). Undeniably, Herrera's annotations do revel in a demonstration of encyclopedic erudition antithetical to the school of Castiglione, and he rejects the prosaic model of poetry approximating the speech of courtiers. He emphasizes instead what is proper for the heightened language of poetry through his attention to genres, figures, and even phonetic techniques. Yet there is little that is systematic about Herrera's exposition, either in content or in arrangement. Historically, the Anotaciones are a transitional text; and while his descriptions of the formal requirements of the various genres, particularly the sonnet, are unusual for his time, it would be impossible to write a poem merely following his precepts. He presupposes familiarity with the forms, and for more prescriptive definitions one must look in Sánchez de Lima's El arte poética en romance castellano (also 1580) or wait for Díaz Rengifo's Arte poética española , ten years later. Similarly, his aesthetic ideas are more methodically presented in Robles's Culto sevillano , which Herrera influenced. His paratextual dependence on Garcilaso shows Herrera's continued resistance to theory, which places the Anotaciones at the cusp of the transition to the Baroque preceptive and analytical treatises of the following century.

Although the arrangement of Herrera's notes seems chaotic, overall they are governed by a limited set of principles: on the one hand, the need to displace Garcilaso from his position at the center of Spanish poetry; on the other, the nature of that poetry as determined by Garcilaso's example. Above all, he emphasizes the importance of sensual (particularly visual) and intellectual elements in poetic ornamentation, and the continuing delay in the completion of the translatio . Underlying these ideas is the conviction that lyric poetry is the proper successor to the epic, and thus is the ground on which national literary achievements must be judged. The context, both historical and stylistic, in which Herrera places Garcilaso is "Italia y Grecia," the Greco-Roman-Italian tradition whose foremost modern representative is Petrarch. Writing the Anotaciones reenacts the hermeneutic circle: such are the expectations with which Herrera reads Garcilaso, and such is what he subreads in Garcilaso's poems. The same circular process lies behind the creation of Herrera's own poetry, and it is with this method that his poems should be read.