A Poet for all Seasons:a Study of the Writings of Gómez Manrique

摘要

Although Gómez Manrique left a corpus of over one hundred poems, there is still only one short monograph on his work, Introducción a la poesía de Gómez Manrique by Kenneth Scholberg, and the brief introduction by Francisco Vidal González to his edition of the poet’s work. Scholarship on his output has otherwise consisted mainly of articles on just one poem. This thesis is an attempt to place his work in the context of fifteenth-century society taking into account its social and political climate. His military career, political activity in the conflicts in the Iberian peninsula, and his administrative posts, together with the fact that he mixed with many of the most influential members of Castilian society, are all important aspects of his life, an awareness of which contributes to our understanding of much of his work. While the main editions of Gómez Manrique (Paz y Melia and Vidal González) divide his work into categories such as his love poetry, debate poetry, moral works and his political writing, here it is argued that these areas of his work do not fall neatly into discrete categories as there is much overlap among them. For this reason an attempt is made to trace the development of his verse and prose within a chronological framework as far as this is possible, taking into account a certain duality in his thought that suggests a rather complex character who is striving to make his voice heard in the turbulent society in which he lived. What binds the different elements of his work together to a large extent is a strong didactic purpose, driven by both Christian and Stoic teaching and Gómez Manrique’s desire to influence those in a position of power in Castilian society by means of the various literary forms that were cultivated by his contemporaries.