Proyecto poético y estructura interna del Cancionero de Juan del Encina (96JE): trayectoria literaria y mecenazgo cortesano

Encina produced his literary works, «hechas desde que huvo catorze años hasta los veinte y cinco», both in the intellectual environment of his academic training at the University of Salamanca, and also as a salaried employee of the Dukes of Alba. While court patronage boosted his artistic career, it also imposed on Encina the generic, thematic, and stylistic conventions of courtly lyric poetry, all in accordance with the tastes and calendar (ceremonial and festive) of the ducal palace. In creating his cancionero de autor, Encina strove to lend prestige to his courtly and learned literary career as a cancionero poet, theorist, musician, and playwright. The Cancionero de Juan del Encina (96JE) was published in Salamanca in 1496. This incunabulum in folio stands out from other cancioneros de autor for its careful editorial design, supervised by the author, and for the innovative and calculated planning of its layout. This article focuses on the internal structure of the Cancionero, and how it relates to Encina’s literary aspirations and the evolution of his poetic career. The deliberate and harmonious arrangement of the compositions in the collection is modelled on the poetic tastes and canonical genres, motifs, topics, and imagery of courtly lyric poetry. Encina’s mastery, technical skill, and rhetorical acuity are the conceptual, prescriptive, and formal framework that lends coherence and quality to his Cancionero. The complete catalogue of courtly poetry (religious compositions, allegories, coplas de amores, glosas de canciones y motes, canciones, romances and canciones con sus deshechas, etc.), in addition to demonstrating Encina’s rhetorical and poetic-song-writing skills—and legitimising his worth as an acclaimed author—lays the foundations for the main objective of the Cancionero: the vindication of the pastoral style in courtly poetry (villancicos pastoriles, dramatic eclogues, Traslación de las Bucólicas). With his cancionero de autor, Encina also aimed to enhance his literary career, to be recognised as a prestigious author by the intellectual elite, to preserve the faithful textual dissemination of his works, and to climb the social ladder up to royal patronage.