Poesía

The century of Charles I and Philip II was also the century of Fray Luis de León, one of the most important poets of the Spanish Renaissance and the great master—along with his contemporaries Fray Luis de Granada, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and Saint John of the Cross—of Spanish mysticism, for whom poetry should be "a communication of the celestial and divine breath." The yearning for the immortal and pure essence of the soul, the search for God, moral themes, and asceticism permeate his verses, inspired by faith and born of genius.