Luis de Góngora is perhaps the most complex poet in the history of Spanish lyric poetry in the 1600s. The difficulty presented by his poetry initiated a significant theoretical debate in the seventeenth century. Researchers of Spanish Golden Age lyric poetry have commonly focused their interests on the study of his poetry through its commentators and imitators. This lead to the promotion of the idea that his works were read by a select minority, omitting the existence of many other readers at that time.
This project proposes a new methodological paradigm that combines analysis of material evidence with a new theoretical conceptualisation about literary reception. On the one hand, existing printed material and manuscripts offer a valuable first-hand insight which has been previously overlooked, such as names of owners or copyists, reading notes (underlining or marks on the text), and handwritten notes (whether reflecting content or not). On the other hand, the existence of seventeenth- century library inventories, either of individual or institutional collections – accessible in a range of forms, such as elaborate catalogues or simple book sale lists – contribute much information about actual ownership of Góngora’s works. Ultimately, the study of these material, historical, and bibliographical sources more accurately illuminates the profile of real readers of the poet’s work.
This methodological model, established in order to reconceptualise the reception of one of the most significant Spanish poets, may be applied to the interdisciplinary study of the reception of any literary work of European modernity.
This project considers, amongst other aspects, what the reading practices of Spanish society were actually like in the Modern Age, the historical period of Imperial Spain known as the ‘Golden Age’ of art and literature. In order to examine and better understand the history of this period, it is fundamentally important to know who was reading and how they did it. In fact, these practices have essentially been maintained to the present day, notwithstanding the emergence of new technology and the internet that have offered new ways of reading.
The implementation of this research has pointed to the need to preserve Spanish bibliographical and archival heritage and to disseminate it and present it in the best possible manner to interested parties. European society has an obligation to value cultural heritage preservation, thanks to which we still have access to those literary, historical, philosophical, and scientific works which have shaped our cultural identity, particularly now that the emergence of new technologies has undervalued and diminished the importance of these material and historical resources.
The overall objective of this research has been to establish a solid interdisciplinary methodology which would facilitate a detailed analysis of reading habits in the Modern Age. In order to realise this objective a tightly defined corpus and context was established: the reading of Luis de Góngora’s Polifemo and Soledades in the seventeenth century. A fundamental objective of this research has been to demonstrate the need for interdisciplinarity in the Humanities, namely how Philology, History, and other sciences and other peripheral fields, such as Ecdotics, Archive Studies, or Palaeography, can be applied in a fruitful manner to a single study corpus in order to obtain a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of literary history, reading patterns, and seventeenth-century society.
