ABSTRACT
Garcilaso de la Vega strengthens the suggestion that lyric poetry can invoke a personal voice and presence - frequently sounding an erotic note that Petrarch hirnself would never have aIlowed. In lyric poetry, personal and authorial identity are put to the test, as is national and cultural identity in the epic. In lyric verse -leaving aside Shakespeare's own - the clearest indication of how this issue develops is to be seen in the witty and famously 'metaphysical' poetry of John Donne. In epic, for instance, a form developed, largely under the influence of Ariosto, in which Homeric and Virgilian models were fused with narratives of quest and adventure drawn from Medieval Romance. This exercise in ecphrasis - responding equally to the sensuous possibilities inherent in natural objects and to the refinements of art - stands as an emblem of Garcilaso's own pastoral achievement and suggests a contrast with the achievements of Ariosto in his closely contemporary Grlando Furioso.
