This is the first comprehensive study in English of one of the most important bodies of verse in European literature. Seventeenth-century Spanish poetry represents the culmination of a rich Renaissance tradition, and Professor Terry sets out to make this accessible not only to Hispanists but to readers of English, French and Italian poetry, with which it had many points of contact. He deals both with the major poets - Góngora, Lope de Vega, Quevedo, Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz - and with the impressively large number of good minor poets, from the Argensolas to Bocángel and Soto de Rojas, whose work is still relatively little read. Drawing upon recent developments in literary criticism as well as paying close attention to individual poems, the book discusses a wide range of issues including the re working of classical and Renaissance models, the importance of rhetoric, and the relationship between author, poem and reader.