“Vuestras palabras me serán espejo”. Neoplatonic reflection between Francisco de Aldana y Luis Cernuda

Abstract

In this article we want to show Aldana’s influence on the poetry of Cernuda through some literary images of Neoplatonic derivation. The Renaissance literary context and the ficinian philosophy that influence the verses of Aldana, allow him to write a sort of luminous philosophy; it converges in the image of the mirror, favoring refraction phenomena that connect man and divinity or man and memory through reciprocal lighting. Cernuda, on the other hand, thanks to his knowledge of English metaphysical poets, brings to his present also Aldana, identifying in his verses a deep capacity for correlation between visible and invisible reality. Recovering the same literary image of the mirror and providing other examples of physical reflection, the Sevillian poet creates a symbolic system thanks to which it will also be evident in his poetic the awareness of the fracture of the human being and the (neoplatonic) aspiration to reunification.