Floridas senas: Gongora and the Petrarchan Tradition

This essay examines the use of the Petrarchan motif of the generative footsteps'the magical ability of the beloved to make flowers bloom wherever she stepsin three sonnets by the Golden-Age Spanish poet Luis de Gongora: Al tramontar del sol, la ninfa mia' (1582), Tres veces de Aquilon el soplo airado' (1582) and Los blancos lilios que de ciento en ciento' (1609). Through close readings, it examines how the image serves as a metatextual symbol in the three poems. Where the motif often functions in Petrarch to evoke an ideal of spontaneous and unmediated creation, Gongora's sonnets reflect upon imitation and influence, drawing attention to the insuperable gap between a poem and its source, arguing for the superiority of imitation over mimesis and representing literature as an endless accumulation of glosses.