Poems that Flow: The River Motif in the Spanish Petrarchan Tradition

Abstract

This essay examines a common motif in Italian and Spanish Petrarchan poetry: the lover who speaks with a river or stream. It argues that this topos often has a metatextual function. Through close readings of texts by Petrarch, Bernardo and Torquato Tasso, Garcilaso de la Vega, Herrera, Gongora and Quevedo, the study examines how the motif is used to explore the function of poetry and the relation between the author and the poem.