SOURCE: Parker, J. H. “Medievalism in Gil Vicente.”¹ In Studies in Honor of Gerald E. Wade, edited by Sylvia Bowman, and others, pp. 179-86. Madrid: José Porrúa Turanzas, S. A., 1979.

In the following excerpt, Parker contends that Vicente's work displays none of the features of Renaissance drama and is, in fact, firmly rooted in the medieval tradition.

There has been a good deal of discussion in recent years as to whether Gil Vicente was completely «medieval» or whether he stood at the threshold of the new, the Renaissance, which during his lifetime was slowly entering Portugal under Italian influence. Sá de Miranda, it is to be remembered, was the main proponent of the new school of poetry, replacing the trovas de medida velha with the versos de medida nova through his imitation of Dante, Petrarch and other Italian Greats.

The competent Portuguese critic António José Saraiva...