La funcionalidad apologética de la traducción de la Divina Comedia de Villegas (1515) y la elección del formato estrófico: pervivencia del arte mayor en la corte de los Reyes Católicos

HAMLIN, CINTHIA MARÍA

Bulletin of Spanish Studies

University of Glasgow

Lugar: Glasgow; Año: 2016 vol. XCII p. 369 - 395

1475-3820

Fernández de Villegas´ translation of the Divine Comedy (Burgos, 1515) in "coplas de arte mayor" has been hitherto considered outmoded in relation to the prevailing poetic fashions of the time, not only because of its stanza type ? according to the critics, a little out-of-date by the end of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century ? but also because of its moralizing tendency. The intention of this article is, firstly, to revise the rewriting mechanisms that the translator uses to reappropriate Dantesque material and which, actually, allow him to design a text that can be perfectly included in Ferdinand?s apologetic tradition and that undoubtly emerges from a very current literary system. Secondly, to investigate the causes that led Villegas to choose this "unfashionable" stanza, for which purpose we shall examine some of the circulating poetic texts and their possible relation with our translation. In this way we will demonstrate how well-established still was the "arte mayor" poetics and the specific function that it fulfilled within the literary system of the court ? being the preferred type of stanza to convey political, prophetic and propagandistic contents ? as well as how current this translation actually was.