Spanish poetry This article concerns poetry in Spain. Medieval Spain The Medieval period covers 400 years of different poetry texts and can be broken up into five categories. Primitive lyrics Since the findings of the Kharjas, which are mainly two, three, o ...

, a silva is a

poetic form Poetry (derived from the Greek '' poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings in ...

consisting of in eleven- and seven- syllable lines: hendecasyllables (''endecasílabos'') and heptasyllables (''heptasílabos''), the majority of which are rhymed although there is no fixed order or rhyme, nor is there a fixed number of lines. Silvas are used by persons of high rank, usually in soliloquies, and for highly emotional narration and description. The use of the silva can be found in

Luis de Góngora Luis de Góngora y Argote (born Luis de Argote y Góngora; ; 11 July 1561 – 24 May 1627) was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet and a Catholic priest. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, are widely considered the most prominen ...

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Soledades ''Las Soledades'' (''Solitudes'') is a poem by Luis de Góngora, composed in 1613 in silva (Spanish strophe) in hendecasyllables (lines of eleven syllables) and heptasyllables (seven syllables). Góngora intended to divide the poem in four par ...

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External links

Spanish Metrification By A. Robert Lauer
{{poetry-stub Poetic forms