Patterns of trope usage in the lyric poetry of Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino.

Abstract

This thesis investigates rhetorical implementation in the datable works of 14th- and 15th-century Castilian lyric poet Alfonso Alvarez de Villasandino, filling a research gap by aiming to illuminate something of Villasandino's personal literary culture and his era's rhetorical and literary norms. Elocutio, the rhetorical element of style, receives central attention. Focusing on elocutio's tropes delimits the scope yet provides a valid identification tool. Examining dated works delimits further yet allows time effects to be considered. Chapter 1 reviews literature regarding lyric, the Cancionero de Baena and Villasandino. Critical opinion ranges from 15th-century respect to 19th-century scorn. Re-evaluation prompts modern research into lyric's nature, composition and place in Peninsular literature and society. Chapter 2 describes the dated corpus, discussing: dates and attributions; content and form, including Villasandino's subjects, reasons for writing, addressees, and technical skill, over three literary production periods; and argumentation and organization techniques revealing basics in Villasandino's literary and rhetorical background. Tables 1-3 facilitate cross-referencing. Chapter 3 discusses trope identifications. Exploring how Villasandino and his circle likely viewed tropes reveals the interplay between classical trope definitions, postclassical and medieval interpretations, and rhetorical, grammatical and poetics sources disseminating both. Appendices A-C label each trope instance marked in situ in the dated corpus. Chapter 4 presents two analyses. One describes usage patterns for key tropes across represented poem types: love, praise, occasional, debate, petition. We conclude that trope usage patterns differ somewhat across poem types to fit form and subject: that is, most trope choice and content appears tied to poem type, form and purpose. The second analysis samples usage across time in single poem types. It shows subtle verse-structure changes and largely unchanged topoi, vocabulary and trope choices: a small though inconclusive time effect on trope usage is suggested in the poem types scrutinized--accumulations early on, and more complex tropes later. These conjectures require further research--reliably dating and analyzing Villasandino's entire corpus to increase sample size, and analyzing works of poets before, contemporary with, and after Villasandino to compare trope usage across genres, time and poets--to give a fuller picture of late medieval rhetorical and literary norms.