A reader that pricked himself with a pin: Orality and semantic values in the Spanish Golden Age poetry

Abstract

Soledades and Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea have earned Góngora several recognitions, such as the most sonorous poet of the Spanish Baroque. However, in the very short space of the sonnet «Prisión del nácar era articulado» manages to generate an acoustic artifice whose semantics amplifies and expands the sense of the poetic narrative. After an analysis of the relationship of sound and meaning in the sonnet, this article puts into context the way of reading it aloud with the reading habits of the Spanish Golden Age and the rhetorical demands for the speaker. Gongora’s sonnet dedicated to the lady who pricked herself with a pin is thus framed in a time when the poetic word tries to seduce the ear through experimentation and hybridity.