Al bello aparecer de este lucero. Poetic meta-textuality in the works of Fernando de Herrera and Enrique Lihn

Abstract

The aim of this article is to examine the works of the Spanish poet Fernando de Herrera (1534-1597), leader of the Sevillian School of poetry and early advancer of the Baroque spirit, and the book of poems Al bello aparecer de este lucero (1997a [1983]) by Enrique Lihn (1929-1988), in order to analyze the underlying meta-textuality in the poetic production of both authors. This meta-textuality enables the configuration of a common form of poetry, displayed through a Mannierist Baroque aesthetic and the dilemma of love. The latter predicament becomes the key through which both authors seek to explain a meta-discourse problem associated to the critical understanding of the poetic phenomenon and the inability to reveal it, thereby representing it through a series of symbolic devices: the daystar, the loved one, the image, the beauty, the writing and the memory.