Nuevos datos sobre la versificación latina de Benito Arias Montano: el libro quinto de los Hymni et secula

Abstract

Among the many activities developed by the Spanish humanist Benito Arias Montano, perhaps the one he cultivated with more pleasure was that of a Neo-Latin poet. Most of the verses written by Arias Montano followed the course of the lyrical meters, with preference for Horatian verses. However, the fifth book of the Secula (Hymni et secula, Antwerp, 1593) is an anomaly in the poetic work of this author because it is composed entirely in elegiac couplets. This article offers a complete metrical study of this book, compares the statistics obtained with those of other classical and Spanish humanist poets, and, from these new data, draws new conclusions on the versification technique of Arias Montano.