Fernando de Herrera

Born 1534, in Sevilla; died there 1597. Spanish poet.

Herrera was a leading member of the Sevilla school of poetry of the High Renaissance. Under the influence of Petrarch, he wrote of love in the spirit of Neoplatonism. He was the author of such affecting odes as “Song to the Victory of Lepanto.” Herrera anticipated the development of Gongorism with Notes on the Works of Garcilaso de la Vega (1580), in which he advocated the saturation of the literary language with complex stylistic figures and images.