ABSTRACT
The poetry of the period was in general too artificial in its inspiration and too complex in its outmoded forms to satisfy the new ideas and tastes. It was felt to lack the nobility, amplitude and perfection of the classics. The double imitation of classical and Italian models furnished an ideal of beauty which had thitherto been scarcely glimpsed. Poetry, and literature in general, acquired, through daily familiarity with masterpieces, some of the qualities termed "classic." Juan Boscan Almogaver was the first systematically and deliberately to introduce the methods and forms of the Italian lyric into Spain; yet he was a Catalan, born in Barcelona, and therefore regarded by Castilians almost as a foreigner. The fourth book of Boscan's Obras contained the poems of his young and illustrious friend, Garcilaso de la Vega, who belonged to a family equally famous in letters and in political history. Antonio de Villegas recalls the poets of the preceding era by certain traits of subtlety and refinement.
