Gongora’s Sonnet on El Greco’s Tomb: A Reconsideration

The Registry of the Deceased for the parish of Santo Tomé, Toledo, contains a brief entry dated April 7, 1614, recording the death of one Domenico Greco (Pita Andrade 162). That same year, or perhaps the year after Luis de Góngora sought to put into the form of a sonnet a more fitting tribute than that of the official notice:

Esta en forma elegante, oh peregrino, de pórfido luciente dura llave al pincel niega al mundo más suave, que dio espíritu a leño, vida a lino. su nombre, aun de mayor aliento digno que en los clarines de la Fama cabe, el campo ilustra de ese mármol grave. Yace el Griego. Heredó Naturaleza arte, y el Arte estudio; Iris, colores; Febo, luces – si no sombras, Morfeo.– Tanta urna, a pesar de su dureza, lágrimas beba y cuantos suda olores corteza funeral de árbol sabeo.

Góngora’s “Inscripción para el sepulcro de Domínico Greco” is one of his most often anthologized poems. From del Río (623) through Terry (23), Jones (90), and others, the poem occupies a notable position among such other well-known pieces as “Mientras por competir,” “A Córdoba,” and “Menos solicitó veloz saeta.” Its frequent inclusion in poetic collections is indicative of the universal critical acclaim it has enjoyed. As Dámaso Alonso, dean of Góngora scholars, averred, it is a “[m]agnífico soneto funeral y testimonio que al mayor pintor del barroquismo profesó su mayor poeta” (172–73).

The sonnet belongs to an extensive corpus of poetic encomia composed by Góngora over the course of his literary career. Some laud his friends, such as Juan Rufo and Paravicino. Others are dedicated to potential patrons. Still others, as in the case of the Inscripción, treat the subject of tombs.

Scholarly analysis of the sonnet has centered on the way in which it mirrors the literary conventions of the day, derived from Classical theories on the arts, and its pronounced gongorista style. Emilie Bergmann has demonstrated how the description of the tomb is an example of ekphrasis, while also incorporating reminiscences of the epitaph tradition. Gornall notes that references to naturaleza, arte, and estudio underscore elements which were considered a sine qua non for an accomplished artist: “He must possess three qualities: natural talent, a knowledge of the rules and traditions of his art, and practice or experience.” (115) As Gornall further observes, however, critics are not unanimous as regards how these references are to be interpreted. Dámaso Alonso, following Salcedo Coronel, stresses the hyperbolic effect of Góngora’s declaration: the colores, luces, and sombras, matched, respectively, with Iris, Febo, and Morfeo, imply that the natural world itself is enhanced by this inheritance¹ (173). For David and Virginia Foster, the El Greco of the sonnet is characterized as “Art personified,” and with his death, “Art, which was once inspired by Nature, has returned to Nature to serve as her inspiration” (92). R.O. Jones proposes a completely different interpretation, suggesting that “Nature inherits the body of the painter; his fellow-artists inherit his art to study” (151).

Given the complexity of Góngora’s verse, it should be of no surprise that some scholarly disagreement exists in regard to the poem’s interpretation.² The Fosters have spoken of how the use of hyperbaton in the sonnet presents its own fair number of exegetical problems. (87) Perhaps it is the very challenge of the text which has generated the relatively numerous critical responses to it. What has gone overlooked in this process, however, is the enormous irony which pervades the entire poem; an irony which, I believe, Góngora sought to underscore: there is not – nor was there ever – a “forma elegante . . . de pórfido luciente.” Now, as then, any peregrino seeking El Greco’s tomb, expecting a great monument carved out of marble, as described in the Góngora sonnet, would be greatly surprised to find a small, black coffin, located in a crypt below the coro of the Convent of Santo...