Garcilaso’s Sonnet XXII: A Re-Examination in the Light of Phenomenological Ethics of Values

GARCILASO'S SONNET XXII: A RE-EXAMINATION IN THE LIGHT OF PHENOMENOLOGICAL ETHICS OF VALUES Bryant L. Creel The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Sonnet XXIIhas been widely recognized as one of Garcilaso's more elusive poems because of the variety of ways in which its many ambiguities allow it to be interpreted. Yetone is encouraged by its apparent simplicity . The poem is as follows: Con ansia estrema de mirar que tiene vuestro pecho escondido alla en su centro y ver si a lo de fuera lo de dentro en apariencia y ser igual conviene, en el puse la vista, mas detiene de vuestra herrnosura el duro encuentro mis ojos, y no pasan tan adentro que miren lo qu' el alma en sf contiene. Yasf se quedan tristes en la puerta hecha, por mi dolor, con essa mano, que aun a su mismo pecho no perdona; donde vi claro mi esperanza muerta y el golpe, que en vos hizo amor en vano, nonesservipassato oltralagona. The last line, which translates as "not having penetrated beyond your gown," is a direct quotation from Petrarch's Canzone 23. Sonnet XXIIhas recently been discussed in some detail by Daniel Heiple (241-50)and by Elias Rivers in his review of Heiple's book (105106 ). Rivers accepts Heiple's recognition of the contribution made by Rivers himself in his 1974critical edition of Garcilaso's works (122-24),but he finally questions some of Heiple's observations on the basis of a study by Antonio Gargano. The current consensus is that Sonnet XXIIpresents, in the context of an unexpected encounter between the poet and the lady, an opposition between the poet's initial intention to behold the lady's inner beauty and his own susceptibility to the power of her sensuous, outer beauty, which hinders the poet's efforts to reach his goal. Shortly before Rivers' edition appeared, Ana Maria Snell published an article in which she discusses Sonnet XXII.1 Snell's view of Sonnet XXIIwould seem to 52 ro Bryant Creel cg deviate from the interpretations of Rivers and Heiple in that she sees the lady's modest action of shielding her breast from the poet's scrutiny as having the effect of hindering the poet's Platonic interest in her. In fact, she regards that professed interest on the part of the poet as being primarily hindered from within by the poet himself, for she considers the poet's idealistic claims to be a subtle disguise for sensual desire and the poem's irony to be its central feature. Except for Gargano, who appears unaware ofSnell's study, subsequent critics have concurred with Snell in considering the poet to be flirtatiously feigning innocence, and they have all (including Gargano) shared Snell's view that this sonnet describes a moment when the poet's interest in the lady as a spiritual person was effectively thwarted by the impression made on him by her physical beauty, the result being her rebuff and the poet's present despair. Rivers affirms: "A nuestro parecer, devuestra hermosurael duroencuentro(v.6) podria quiza ser un golpe de mano con el que se tap6 la dama el pecho (vv.9-10y 13);... Quiza mas verosirnil sea un sentido figurativo: su hermosura carnal era de por sfuna cruel barrera para las ojos del poeta, quien queria verle el alma" (1974: 123). According to Heiple, The lover, blinded by exterior beauty, could not see the interior virtue of his mistress, and in fact, in this external beauty he "sees" his hopes die: "donde vi claro mi esperarn;a muerta." These hopes are not the courtly desire of conquest, but the Platonic desire of an intellectually requited love. His love of sensual beauty and his inability to enter the door signify the death of Platonic love, further indicated by the fact that his love has not been reciprocated. Cupid's arrows have not passed the gown of the mistress, in the same way his vision, struck by her sensual beauty, could not pass the covering of the body. (248) Like Rivers, Heiple would seem to assert that the primal power of the lady's physical beauty is represented as brutally arresting the poet's...