ABSTRACT
Religious subjects are the only ones that furnished any real inspiration to the writers who lived in the midst of such great events as the taking of Granada and the discovery of the New World. Many historians of Spanish literature have sought to classify the lyric poets of the Golden Age, assigning some to the Sevillian school, others to the school of Salamanca, of Aragon, and so forth. Before coming to the religious poets, to whom belongs so large a part of the finest verse in the Spanish language, one or two more secular ones must be mentioned. Poets of a similar character to the Argensolas, though somewhat less stiff and not so exclusively classical, are the Prince of Esquilache and Manuel de Villegas, the latter of whom produced some really pretty imitations of Anacreon in seven-syllable lines.
