‘El canto y lira mía’: The Horatian Authorial Persona in the Work of Fray Luis de León

Abstract

In this study I discuss the generic implications of Fray Luis’s adoption of the Horatian authorial persona. Firstly, I interpret Ode I as a statement of his poetic programme. Next, I argue that in Ode XXII Fray Luis navigates lyric’s apparent rejection of epic themes by modelling his portrayal of Pedro Portocarrero on Horace’s relationship with Maecenas. I then discuss how other elevated poems are compatible with the lyric persona through their affiliation with the hymn form and particularly with Pindar’s lyric. Critics often comment that Fray Luis avoids amatory themes; while this is true in his original poetry, I argue that in his translations of Horace and in his use of Classical allusion in the Latin commentary In Canticum Canticorum, the lyric persona gives him both the licence to treat amatory themes and the ability to distance himself from them through Horatian humour.