Amarilis (poet)

While Amarilis wrote "Amarilis a Belardo" in 1619, little is known about her date of birth. All that could be said about her age range was that she wrote her epistle as a young woman.[8] It was likely that she was a nun living in a convent in either the small city of Huánuco or Peru's capital, Lima.[8] In La Filomena, Lope de Vega introduces Amarilis to his readers as a Criolla, someone who was born in the Americas but is ethnically Spanish.[9]

Everything else that could be gathered about her life is solely sourced from her poem. Amarilis claims to have been descended from two individuals close to conquistador Francisco Pizarro; such ancestors of hers would have fought against the rebellion of Francisco Hernández Girón. After being orphaned as a toddler or small child, Amarilis was sent with her younger sister, Belisa, to live with her aunt. Amarilis describes both herself and her younger sister as having been gifted children in their own rights. Their relationship was close, and Amarilis further explains that her sister became famous and married un joven venturoso, or a fortunate young man.[10][11] Amarilis was unmarried at the time her epistle was written, telling Lope de Vega that she was beautiful enough to marry well,[12] but was pushed towards nunhood by inspiration from las dulces Musas, the sweet muses.[13] Any further information about Amarilis would be pure conjecture[10]

The name Amarilis was credited to multiple different women over the years, but no particular theory has surfaced as more plausible than any other. The Spanish version of this article, Amarilis, postulates that the poet's real name was Maria de Rojas y Garay (this article is not well-sourced, so readers should proceed with a fair amount of caution). Some historians and researchers believed that Amarilis was Doña Marta de Nevares Santoyo,[14] a Spanish woman whom Lope de Vega met in 1616 and even had an affair with.[15] Others consider the possibility that she could have been Isabel de Figueroa, María de Alvarado, or María Tello de Lara y de Arévalo y Espinosa. Peruvian scholar Ricardo Palma doubted that Amarilis was a woman,[14] and others still regarded her as a total work of fiction.[15]

When faced with the possibility that Amarilis was one of de Vega's fellow playwrights, American historian Irving Leonard considers it to be unlikely; Amarilis lived in a time when women playwrights were uncommon in Spain, let alone in its distant colonial lands such as Peru. It was far more plausible that Amarilis learned of de Vega's plays when she went to one of the local theaters, which were particularly common in the Lima at the time.[16][17]

Amarilis a Belardo is a long epistle that, after revealing Amarilis' feelings for de Vega, serves as a request for him to write a biography on St. Dorothy, her patron saint.[18] Amarilis also urges de Vega to end his affair with Marta de Nevares because he was supposed to uphold his spiritual duties as a priest.[19] Lope de Vega responded to this poem a year later, confessing his love to the unknown author.[18]

The poem itself is split into 19 stanzas of varying lengths of varying lengths, each depicting a different category of content.[20] It was written in canzone form, a categorization usually given to poems that consist of stanzas with 10-12-syllable lines without a refrain,[21][22], but this particular work has roughly 18 lines in each of its stanzas.[23] Amarilis does not keep to one specific rhyme scheme, but does ensure that different line endings within a given stanza do rhyme; for example, one part of a stanza may have the ABCA rhyme scheme, while another may have a rhyming couplet. She was influenced by Italian theories about poetry, and was knowledgeable on the subject of Latin poets, especially of Virgil.[12] While the epistle's content could point to its description as being a mere "fan letter," the remarkable genius behind its structure and overall quality set it apart.[7]

Amarilis uses various metaphors to describe her love towards de Vega in great detail, explaining that it extends far past anything physical or romantic. Aware of her status as a woman living in the Spanish colonies, Amarilis declares that a man in her position would not have dared to be so brave as to address a famous Spanish author such as Lope de Vega. She then goes on to say that "la mujer, que es fuerte, / no teme alguna vez la misma muerte" ("a strong woman is not fearful of death itself").[24]

Amarilis' epistle is considered to be a literary masterpiece, and even Lope de Vega was so affected by her passionate and brilliantly crafted verse that he was driven not only to respond, but also to publish the epistle in one of his books.[25] In fact, the speculation about Amarilis' identity is one of the most debated questions about Vega's whole career.[26] Author William Felker goes even further, stating that he considers the epistle to be "the finest of early Latin American lyrics". However, Amarilis remains largely unknown to world literature, especially in comparison to later poets such as Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, who Felkner claims was the first Latin American lyricist to match Amarilis' literary prowess.[27]

• Bardin, James C. (1941). "Three Literary Ladies of Spain's American Colonies: II Amarilis." Bulletin of the Pan American Union. 75: 19-24- via HeinOnline Law Journal Library
• "Canzone at a glance: Poetry through the Ages." www.webexhibits.org.
• Chang-Rodríguez, Raquel (2005). Gendered Voices from Lima and Mexico: Clarinda, Amarilis, and Sor Juana. Blackwell Publishing, pp. 281-282.
• "Check out this translation for "dulces musas" on SpanishDict!" SpanishDict.
• "Check out this translation for "venturoso" on SpanishDict!" SpanishDict.
• "Epistola de Amarilis a Belardo" (PDF). Information System Masarykovy University.
• Felkner, William (1976). "The New World is Lonely: Reflections on 'Epistola a Belardo' by the Amarilis Indiana." Seventeenth-Century News 34- via ExLibris RapidLL.
• Leonard, Irving A. (1937). "More Conjectures regarding the Identity of Lope de Vega's "Amarilis Indiana"." Hispania. 20 no. 2: 113-120- via JSTOR.
• "Marta de Nevares." Wikipedia, la enciclopedia libre (in Spanish), 2021-03-02.
• Mascia, Mark J. (2001). "To judge through verse: The sonnets of Lope de Vega's La Circe and his engagement with literature." Romanic Review, 92, Issue 3: 334-340- via ProQuest LION.
• "Much more than theatre." casamuseolopedevega.org.
• Sabat-Rivers, Georgina (1989). Scripta Humanista: Amarilis' Verse Epistle and her Love for Lope: Seeing and Hearing. The Catholic University of America. pp. 152-166.
• "Viceroyaty of Peru." Second Wiki.