SOURCE: Carr, Derek C. “Another Look at the Metrics of Santillana's Sonnets.”¹ Hispanic Review 46 (1978): 41-53.

In the following essay, Carr questions the notion that Santillana's sonnet writing was a deliberate, yet unsuccessful, attempt to introduce Italian meter into Spain and suggests instead that the poems reveal elements alien to their supposed Italian models in both form and content.

Gerald Brenan, in his Literature of the Spanish People, has dedicated one sentence to the sonnets of the Marqués: “In his sonnets … [Santillana] was moderately successful in introducing the Italian hendecasyllable.”² This statement sums up succinctly almost all that has been written on the subject. Lapesa refers to Santillana's hendecasyllables as having “un aspecto de tentativa inmadura,”³ and again: “sus endecasílabos fluctúan entre el todavía no y el ya, entre la inmadurez y el logro.”⁴ J. B. Trend's brief introduction to his selection of sonetos fechos...