biography
| name: |
Boscà Almugaver, Joan
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pronunciation:
[boska almoogavair
| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (c.1487–1542)
|
| biography:
| Poet and translator, born in Barcelona, NE Spain. He was tutor to the young Don Fernando, future Duque de Alba. Although he lived most of his life in court circles, his most significant themes are the domestic virtues, love of his wife and children, and the pleasures of home and the simple, honest life. At the court of Carlos V he befriended Garcilaso de la Vega, and this association proved to be the vital element in his introduction of Italian metres and the Italianate temperament into Spain. In 1526 Andrea Navagero, the Venetian ambassador, invited him to attempt the Italian style. Already familiar with the Provençal hendecasyllabic line normal in Catalan lyric poetry, he quickly learnt the new accentuation and showed his compatriots the new metres, not only octavas reales (which became the dominant metre in Spanish Renaissance epic verse) but also sonnets and tercets. Boscà began to collect his work, but died before it was published. His widow Ana Girón de Rebolledo, to whom his most charming love poetry was addressed, collected and published it as Las Obras de Boscan y algunas de Garcilasso de la Vega repartidas en Quarto libros (1543). |
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