La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea facts for kids

La Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea), or simply the Polifemo, is a literary work written by Spanish poet Luis de Góngora y Argote. The poem, though borrowing heavily from prior literary sources of Greek and Roman Antiquity, attempts to go beyond the established versions of the myth by reconfiguring the narrative structure handed down by Ovid. Through the incorporation of highly innovative poetic techniques, Góngora effectively advances the background story of Acis and Galatea’s infatuation as well as the jealousy of the Cyclops Polyphemus.

The Polifemo was completed in manuscript form in 1613 and was subsequently published in 1627 after Góngora’s death (see 1627 in poetry). The work is traditionally regarded as one of Góngora’s most lofty poetic endeavors and is arguably his finest artistic achievement along with the Soledades. The Polifemo, in sum, realizes the final stage of Góngora’s sophisticated poetic style, which slowly developed over the course of his career. In addition to the Soledades and other later works, the Polifemo demonstrates the fullest extent of Góngora’s highly accentuated, erudite and impressionistic poetic style known as culteranismo.

As made evident in the opening of the poem, the Polifemo was dedicated to the Count of Niebla, a Castilian nobleman renowned for his generous patronage of 17th century Spain’s most preeminent artists. The work’s predominant themes, jealousy and competition, reflect the actual competitive environment and worldly aspirations that drove 17th-century poets such as Góngora to cultivate and display their artistic ingenuity. Góngora wrote his Polifemo in honor of Luis Carillo y Sotomayor's Fabula de Acis y Galatea, which was a contemporary poem depicting the same mythological account. Additionally, the poem of Carillo y Sotomayor was in deed dedicated to the very same Count of Niebla. Luis Carrillo y Sotomayor was both Góngora’s friend and a fellow “culteranist” poet who died at the age of 27 in 1610, three years before Góngora's Polifemo was completed. The premature death of a promising pupil in a sense prompted the creation of the Polifemo.

Conventional restraints; the Polifemo and poetic liberation in the Spanish Baroque

The Polifemo is unprecedented for Góngora in terms of its length, its florid style, and its ingenio (artistic ingenuity or innovation). Regarding its literary form, the poem develops in a manner that is distinctively unmindful of the mediating artistic clarity outlined in Aristotle’s Poetics

Contemporary critics such as Luis Carrillo y Sotomayor would come to see these Aristotelian precepts as artistically stifling. In his Libro de la Erudición Poética, Carillo formally denounces both clarity and straightforwardness, particularly when such artistic ideals placed parameters on poetic expression in an effort to make "oneself intelligible to the half-educated." Though culteranismo maintained this elitist and aristocratic quality well after Carillo's death, this seemingly haughty comment on the part of Góngora's pupil was actually a jibe at Góngora's fiercest critics whose periodic vitriol sought to discredit the artist and his work. This fundamental debate between artistic clarity, intelligibility, lyricism, novelty and free expression first outlined in the Poetics of Aristotle and debated in the literary circles of posterity would never cease to divide artists throughout the modern era. Culteranismo, which was particularly fond of playful obscurity, has consequently incurred the disdain of several critics for its liberal artistic outlooks, which critics lampooned as frivolous and pedantic.

The primacy of ingenio contradicted the claims of more traditional critics who sought to tame instinct by imposing a rigorous aesthetic framework of poetic regulations derived from the ancients in order to establish a more coherent dialogue with the audience or reader. Critics such as Juan Martínez de Jáuregui y Aguilar and Francisco de Quevedo, for reasons related to their obscure lyricism, saw culternanist poets as highly affected, superficial and purposefully obscure with the intention of masking poetic mediocrity with highly ornate phraseology.

Regardless of the charges levied against his style, Góngora would remain one of the most influential poets of the Spanish Baroque and would influence in turn the styles of even his most malicious critics. The sophisticated metaphors displayed in the Polifemo would later inspire French symbolists such as Paul Verlaine as well as modern Spanish poets such as Federico García Lorca and fellow members of the Generation of '27. Culteranismo has always retained a highly arcane and esoteric quality throughout the centuries which would eventually inform the mystical nostalgia definitive to the poetry of other 20th century modernist poets. Along with conceptismo, culteranismo largely defined Spanish Baroque Poetry. Culteranismo, as a 17th-century artistic movement, sought to elevate pure ingenio over the ideal of imitatio (Latin term for artistic imitation), a tendency that dominated Renaissance poetry (see ad fontes). The ambiguity of culternanists would continue to incur criticism from more conservative Spanish poets and thinkers for centuries.

Background, the classical precursors of the Polifemo and poetic innovation

Though the mythological characters themselves can be traced to various pre-Hellenistic sources, such as book 9 of the Odyssey, the comprehensive artistic representation of the fabled lovers’ tryst, the rejection and consequent dejection of Polyphemus and the subsequent murder of Acis was realized much later in Ovid’s Metamorphoses.

Nevertheless, Ovid was not the first poet to exploit the poetic potential of these mythical figures. Though his influence on this poem is less direct, the founder of the bucolic or pastoral genre, Theocritus, wrote a burlesque poem representing Polyphemus and his unrequited love for the Sea-nymph Galatea. The pastoral genre was subject to later imitation by other prominent figures of antiquity, as seen in Virgil’s Eclogues, as well as by prominent figures of the Italian and Spanish Renaissance, such as Petrarch and Garcilaso de la Vega.

In Theocritus, Ovid and Góngora, the Songs of the Cyclops resemble one another to varying degrees. The two classical poems, which served as the framework for Gongora’s version, are characterized by the Cyclops’s invocation of Galatea which retains both a presumptuous and wistful tone. Some shared characteristics of classical origin are:

1. Theocritus and Ovid have Polyphemus compare Galatea’s physical beauty and allusiveness to natural and pastoral phenomena. The lamenting of Polyphemus is marked by the statement of her rejection of him and his consequent despondence. In Theocritus, “Polyphemus’ four comparisons are with the daily business of agriculture and husbandry, made special nevertheless by the endearing simplicity of this Cyclops.” In contrast, Góngora portrays Polyphemous as deeply poetic and sophisticated despite his ferocious appearance, lifestyle and the egotistical/antisocial disposition.
2. There exists in all three poems a description of his unappealing physical appearance. Góngora's song is more subtle and consciously avoids the burlesque comedy found in Ovid.
3. Polyphemus lists his fecundity or material wealth in all 3 poems.
4. Polyphemus admonishes Galatea to be with him.

Theocritus's version ends in the young Cyclop's self-reprimands. Furthermore, The tone is purely innocent and humorous, while hope for another love remains.

Though other imitations and related works exist, the primary inspiration for Góngora was undoubtedly Ovid who portrayed the tale in a way that conformed to the Metamorphoses's integral theme of transformation where beginnings and ends that feed into one another.

Though the narrative structure differs substantially from that found in Ovid's version, Góngora assumes a similar plot with the Cyclops's murder of Acis followed by the young boy's transformation. Though Ovid's work serves as the thematic and narrative framework for the Polifemo, Góngora doesn’t seem content to merely imitate Ovid. The two poets had different aspirations that are clear to distinguish. In writing the Metamorphoses, Ovid sought to compose a narrative of mythic time united by the theme of constant transformation. Ovid's intention is, thus, cosmological in nature. Given his drastically opposing style and clear deviation from the ancient poet's narrative structure, the Spanish poet attempts to reexamine this popular myth, which grants him wide parameters for the display of his sophisticated wit as well as a peculiar aesthetic sensibility that are not nearly as developed in the Roman's poem.

Deviations from the Ovidian portrayal and Gongorine innovation

There are several notable differences in terms of content that distinguish the Polifemo from its predecessor. As Melinda Eve Lehrer states in her work Classical Myth and the “Polifemo” of Góngora, “Góngora made many innovations in the myth which he inherited from Ovid. Some of them have a merely ornamental function, while others are organically essential to Góngora’s poem.”

There are several ornamental additions that detract from the narration that are obviously not present in its classical counterpart:

Furthermore, as Leher points out, when displaying his wealth and fecundity:

In addition to ornamental descriptions giving life to the Cyclops' mundane possessions, Góngora often incorporates anecdotes that detract from the overall narration as in St. 50-53 regarding the shipwrecked Genoese merchants.

The thematic aloofness of Góngora's verse contrasts sharply with his purely conceptista contemporaries who valued a verbal economy of correspondences and a less convoluted interplay between words (signs) and their meaning (signifiers) as the true testament of wit, which they in turn used to costume a thematic focus. Góngora recreates events by focusing on the sensual impressions granted by the narrative. This reluctance to appeal to or rely on preconceived abstractions and prosaic lexicon and expressions forces the reader to reconstruct meaning. Given his highly sensorial lyrics and his reluctance to directly engage or placate the reader's understanding, literary critics, such as Dámaso Alonso, have labeled Góngora's style as particularly impressionistic.

Other narrative differences

The eloquence of Polifemo's words as he serenades Galatea is particular to Góngora, which contrasts sharply with the grotesque and humorous classical portrayals of the barbarous Cyclops. Góngora chooses to exclude the image of the Cyclops raking (i.e. combing) his hair and other instances in which scrupulous attention is given to his physical appearance. In Ovid, this was used likewise for a humorous effect, which was inappropriate for the graver tone set by Góngora. There are several comedic elements to the ancient texts that were selectively discarded by Góngora.

A noticeable difference is in the discovery of the lovers. While in Ovid, the Cyclops stumbles upon them while he is roaming the countryside, Góngora has the discovery interrupt the song of the Cyclops as he is lamenting. As Lehrer goes on to state in her mythological analysis of the Polifemo, “interruption of a speaker is in fact a motif that occurs in Góngora’s Soledad Primera and suggests displacement and alienation. The interruption of Polifemo’s song resembles a “jog in timing which hastens the denouement of the poem.” Thus, while it does not deviate from the unfolding of the plot, it definitely elicits an aesthetic effect not present in its Roman predecessor.

See also

In Spanish: Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea para niños

• 1613 in poetry