Arboreal Figures in the Golden Age Sonnet

Abstract

The tree beset by natural forces, the embrace of elm and vine, and the antithesis of mulberry and almond are related figures which Spanish sonneteers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries frequently used when structuring agudezas por semejanza. The extent to which these stock figures are revitalized in unique poetic artifacts reveals each poet s ability to work within the limitations of an aesthetics of invention through imitation. Moreover, to follow the varying fortunes of these topoi is to assess the efficacy of the modes of correlation (simile, allegory, adequate symbol, or objective correlative); to witness the interplay of the Petrarchan and emblematic traditions; to note the variations on a theme exploited first by the erotic poets, later by the moralists; and to highlight the shift of emphasis from the discursive to the pictorial which marks the transition from the aesthetics of the Renaissance to that of the Baroque. Finally, the precise delineation of the specific context or whole, of which each sonnet is an integral part, permits a more comprehensive exegesis of that sonnet's alma de sutileza, for Gracian the essence of the craft and criticism of poetry.