Manrique, Jorge
Manrique, Jorge
(hôr`hā mänrē`kā), c.1440–1479, Spanish poet and soldier. Most of his verse is undistinguished, but his Coplas [couplets], on his father's death, are among the treasures of world poetry. Incomparably elegant, they describe an exemplar of medieval knighthood and his stoic acceptance of death. Longfellow's notable English translation appeared in 1833.Manrique, Jorge
Born in 1440, in Paredes de Nava; died Mar. 27, 1479, in Garcí-Muñoz. Spanish poet.
Manrique fought in the antifeudal wars when absolutism was being established in Spain. Most of Manrique’s works consist of courtly love poems. He is the author of the allegorical poem “The Castle of Love” and of the burlesque satire “An Invitation to My Stepmother.” Manrique is renowned for his poem Couplets for the Death of His Father (1476), in which ascetic motifs and the theme of the omnipotence of death and the transience of earthly blessings are combined with the humanistic ideal of the fighting man who wins immortality.
WORKS
Cancionero. Introduction and notes by Augusto Cortina. Madrid, 1960.In Russian translation:
Strofy. In O. Savich, Poety Ispanii i Latinskoi Ameriki. Moscow, 1966.
REFERENCES
Smirnov, A. A. Srednevekovaia literatura Ispanii. Leningrad, 1969.Krause, A. Jorge Manrique and. the Cult of Death in the Cuatrocientos. Berkeley, 1937.
Salinas, O., Jorge Manrique o tradición y originalidad. Buenos Aires [1947].
Serrano de Haro, A., Personalidady destino de Jorge Manrique.Madrid, 1966.
A. L. SHTEIN