Literary Theorists: Fray Luis de Leon

Poetic theory of Fray Luis de Leon

 Fray Luis de León (1527-1591). He was born Luis Ponce de León in Belmonte, in the Province of Cuenca, in 1527 or 1528. His parents were Lope de León and Inés de Varela. His father practiced laws, and the family moved to Madrid in 1534. Both of his parents had Jewish ancestry, so he would have been considered to be of convert lineage.
              Fray Luis entered the University of Salamanca at the age of fourteen, in 1541, to study Canon Law under the care of his uncle Francisco. In 1543 or 1544 he joined the Augustinian Order, and was professed as a friar at the Priory of San Pedro. In 1552, Fray Luis graduated with a bachelor’s degree in theology from the University of Toledo and continued his education as a student of Hebrew and Biblical interpretation at the University of Alcala de Henares.
                 In 1560 he graduated from the University of Salamanca as bachelor and Master of Theology, and in the following year he obtained a chair in Theology at the same university; in 1571 he attained the Chair of Sacred Letters. While at the University, he translated classical and biblical literature and wrote on religious themes.

                    He returned to the academic environment of the University of Salamanca as a professor of Biblical exegesis and held the chairs of Moral Philosophy and Biblical Studies. He was elected to the chair of Holy Scripture at the University of Salamanca in 1579, and went on to earn a Master of the Arts degree from the University of Sahagún.
                    Fray Luis did not pay heed to the cautionary admonishments of the Inquisitorial committee after his earlier imprisonment. In 1582, he had another Inquisitional run-in, but was not this time imprisoned. He was absolved two years later.
                    He died at the age of 64 on 23 August, 1591, in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Avila, and is buried in Salamanca in the Priory of San Agustin. Ten days before his death he was elected Vicar General of the Augustinian Order.

                    Fray Luis was a great connoisseur of theology, especially the Bible, and wrote several commentaries in Latin to different books of the Bible. His knowledge of the biblical languages (Greek and Hebrew) gave him access to the original texts. Along with other intellectuals, Fray Luis criticized the Latin translations of the Bible, which respected little texts the Hebrew version. In addition to these theological works written in Latin, Fray Luis de León wrote prose and verse in Castilian.

                   The poetry of Fray Luis has three main sources: the Bible, Renaissance humanism and classicism. As Professor of Sacred Scripture, knows the Bible as the revealed message of divine origin, and as an artistic work. From the Bible comes the search for inner peace and harmony in union with the divine. As Renaissance man knows the new formal resources within the Italian poetic tradition of Petrarch, Bembo, Tasso. Fray Luis choose one verse of that poetic stream the lyre to express his poetic thought. As a humanist, drink in the classic tradition from several sources: the neo-Platonism and Stoicism. Classical authors also influence, especially Horace, whose shape the poetic translations of his original poems. The most influential work was the “Beatus ille” of Horacio. His translation of commentary of “Song of songs”, by Salomon, is a masterpiece of criticism literary, because in it Luis de Leon explores the text in its external and deepest meaning.

Erika Yashir Shibaja