Rengifo's Debt to Antonio da Tempo

Extract

The most important versification manual in the history of Spanish literature is undoubtedly Juan Díaz Rengifo's Arte poética española, which first appeared in Salamanca in 1592 and was reissued a number of times in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. That the influence of this Renaissance treatise on Spanish verse has been great cannot be questioned. For approximately four centuries, in fact, it was the handbook on metrics for versifiers and poets. Reasons for the value and usefulness of the Arte poética española are not lacking. Rengifo was a scholarly investigator—scholarly in the modern sense. He worked systematically; he based his conclusions on actual practice rather than on theory; he illustrated his rules with examples chosen generally from the best-known poets; he studied the investigations of previous writers and, in full bibliographical references in marginal notes that correspond to today's footnotes, frankly gave them credit for all ideas and material borrowed from them; he showed unbiased judgment in the presentation of controversial topics; he described accurately, but never prescribed; he wrote clearly in simple language and without unnecessary wordage; he supplied time-saving devices for the reader; and he presented his work in an orderly, logical, and concise manner. His work is comprehensive and well balanced.