Jorge Manrique

Spanish poet (1440–1479)

Jorge Manrique (c. 1440 – 24 April 1479) was a major Spanish poet, whose main work, the Coplas a la muerte de su padre (Stanzas about the Death of his Father), is still read today. He was a supporter of the great Spanish queen, Isabel I of Castile, and actively participated on her side in the civil war that broke out against her half-brother, Enrique IV, when the latter attempted to make his daughter, Juana, crown princess. Jorge died in 1479 during an attempt to take the castle of Garcimuñoz after Isabel gained the crown.

Jorge Manrique
Portrait of Jorge Manrique by Juan de Borgoña
Bornc. 1440
DiedApril 24, 1479(1479-04-24) (aged 38–39)
Occupation(s)Poet and soldier
SpouseGuiomar de Castañeda
Children2
Parents
  • Rodrigo Manrique (father)
  • Mencía de Figueroa (mother)
RelativesHouse of Lara

Manrique were one of major Spanish aristocratic families of the Jewish converso descent. See, Norman Roth, "Conversos, Inquisition, and the Expulsion of the Jews from Spain", Madison, WI: The University of Wisconcin Press, 1995, p. 333. Jorge Manrique was a great-nephew of Iñigo López de Mendoza (marquess of Santillana), a descendant of Pero López de Ayala, chancellor of Castile, and a nephew of Gómez Manrique, corregidor of Toledo, all important poets of the late fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. He was, therefore, a member of a noble family of great consequence.

References

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  • Domínguez, Frank A. Love and Remembrance: The Poetry of Jorge Manrique. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1989.
  • Domínguez, Frank A. "Jorge Manrique" in Castilian Writers, 1400-1500 Vol. 286. Detroit: Gale, c2004. (The article can be accessed as well in electronic format through the database Literature Resource Center at Gale in participating libraries.)
  • Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth. Coplas de Don Jorge Manrique. Boston: Allen & Ticknor, 1833.
  • Marino, Nancy. Jorge Manrique's Coplas por la muerte de su padre: A History of the Poem and Its Reception.(Colección Támesis, A/298.) Woodbridge, UK: Tamesis, 2011
  • Serrano de Haro, Antonio. Personalidad y destino de Jorge Manrique. Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1966.
  • Salinas, Pedro. Tradición y originalidad Buenos Aires: Editorial Sudamericana 1947
  • Brenan, Gerald. The Literature of the Spanish people, Cambridge, 1951.