History Creator / GarcilasoDeLaVega

Garcilaso was a known ladies man. He had a stable marriage in lady Elena de Zúñiga, but there were a very long list of women in his love life, some of which he immortalized in his poetry. This included his first love, Guiomar Carrillo, as well as Magdalena de Guzmán, Beatriz de Sá, and at least two more.

[[caption-width-right:270:"For you I must die, and for you I die."[[note]]This 1550 portrait is officially anonymous, but some believe to be a copy or reproduction of a lost portrait of Garcilaso.[[/note]]]]

Garcilaso de la Vega (c. 1501 – 14 October 1536) was a Spanish soldier, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. He is among the most celebrated poets of Spanish history, his work having remained uninterruptedly popular up to present time, and is very often used as the measuring stick for every other Spanish-speaking poet. He influenced many if not all other writers of the Golden Age, like Creator/LopeDeVega, Creator/FranciscoDeQuevedo and Creator/MiguelDeCervantes. His descendant was also Creator/IncaGarcilasoDeLaVega, considered his counterpart in the Hispanic American prose.

He was born in Toledo to a family of the lower nobility, although as this part of his life is obscure, his exact birth date is still disputed, with propositions going wildly from 1487 to 1503. In any case, even despite being ruled out of succession for being a second son, he received an extensive education in five languages and many fields, including fencing, music and literature, making him a veritable WarriorPoet of his time. He formed part of the court of King UsefulNotes/CharlesV, eventually joining the royal guard, and was also part of the entourage of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Enríquez, Duke of Alba, for which Garcilaso became close friends with the next duke in line, the future famous [[UsefulNotes/TheDukeOfAlba Fernando Álvarez de Toledo]]. Garcilaso and Fernando served together in multiple military campaigns against the French and the Ottomans.

Garcilaso was a known ladies man. He had a stable marriage in lady Elena de Zúñiga, but there were a very long list of women in his love life, some of which he immortalized in his poetry. This included his first love, Guimar Carrillo, as well as Magdalena de Guzmán, Beatriz de Sá, and at least two more.

He started writing poetry by suggestion of his friend Juan Boscán, who published his works after Garcilaso's death. Although he acknowledged he was not an InstantExpert, he eventually came to handle quite well the classicist and Petrarchian styles coming from the Italian Reinaissance, and was the first man to introduce several lyrical conventions to Spanish language. He is best known for his tragic love poetry, abundant in allusions to Greco-Roman mythology, great musicality and absence of traditional religion, as well as his pastoral work, which went to influence the Nobel Prize-winning Seamus Heaney.

He traveled extensively throughout Europe and served as a spy at some points during the truce with France after the Battle of Pavia. Despite his political success, however, Garcilaso suffered a brief banishment after participating an a marriage disfavored by King Charles, during which he was an exile in the court of castellan György Cseszneky in Hungary before being recalled to Spain when his experience against the Turk was needed again. He also joined yet another war against France, even being named general of a ''tercio'', but his pen was left orphan when he was killed in action while acting as a FrontlineGeneral in Provence. His death was very deeply felt, enraging King Charles to the point he had the entire enemy garrison executed.

* BoringButPractical: He spoused the belief that it was better to write in a simple style than to indulging in PurpleProse.

He was born in Toledo to a family of the lower nobility, although as this part of his life is obscure, his exact birth date is still disputed, with propositions going wildly from 1487 to 1503. In any case, even despite being ruled out of succession for being a second son, he received an extensive education in five languages and many fields, including fencing, music and literature, making him a veritable WarriorPoet of his time. He formed part of the court of King UsefulNotes/CharlesV, eventually joining the royal guard, and was also part of the entourage of Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo y Enríquez, Duke of Alba, for which Garcilaso became close friends with the next duke in line, the future famous UsefulNotes/FernandoAlvarezDeToledoYPimentel. Garcilaso and Fernando served together in multiple military campaigns against the French and the Ottomans.

Garcilaso de la Vega (c. 1501 – 14 October 1536) was a Spanish soldier, poet and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. He is among the most celebrated poets of Spanish history, his work having remained uninterruptedly popular up to present time, and is very often used as the measuring stick for every other Spanish-speaking poet. He influenced many if not all other writers of the Golden Age, like Creator/LopeDeVega, Creator/FranciscoDeQuevedo and Creator/MiguelDeCervantes.

His nephew Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega was a conquistador during the UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheIncaEmpire, where he married the Inca aristocrat Isabel Suárez Yupanqui and had a mestizo son, Gómez Suárez, who would eventually become the greatest Peruvian writer under the name Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.

* BoringButPractical: He spoused the belief that it was better to write in a simple style than to indulging in SesquipedalianLoquaciousness.

His nephew Sebastián Garcilaso de la Vega was a conquistador during the UsefulNotes/SpanishConquestOfTheIncaEmpire, where he married the Inca aristocrat Isabel Suárez Yupanqui and had a mestizo son, Gómez Suárez, who would eventually become the greatest Peruvian writer under the name Inca Garcilaso de la Vega.