Juan Alfonso de Baena

Juan Alfonso de Baena (died c. 1435) was a medieval Castilian poet and scribe in the court of Juan II of Castile. Baena, who was a converso (a Jewish convert to Christianity), is best known for compiling and contributing to the Cancionero de Baena, an important medieval anthology composed between 1426 and 1465 containing the poems of over 55 Spanish poets who wrote during the reigns of Enrique II, Juan I, Enrique III, and Juan II.

Quotes

• The art of poetry, the gay science, is a most subtle and most delightful sort of writing or composition. It is sweet and pleasurable to those who propound and to those who reply; to utterers and to hearers. This science, or the wisdom or knowledge dependent on it, can only be possessed, received, and acquired by the inspired spirit of the Lord God; who communicates it, sends it, and influences by it, those alone, who well and wisely, arid discreetly and correctly, can create and arrange, and compose and polish, and scan and measure feet, and pauses, and rhymes, and syllables, and accents, by dextrous art, by varied and by novel arrangement of words. And even then, so sublime is the understanding of this art, and so difficult its attainment, that it can only be learned, possessed, reached, and known to the man who is of noble and of ready invention, elevated and pure discretion, sound and steady judgment; who has seen, and heard, and read many and divers books and writings; who understands all languages; who has, moreover, dwelt in the courts of kings and nobles; and who has witnessed and practised many heroic feats. Finally, he must be of high birth, courteous, calm, chivalnc, gracious; he must be polite and graceful; he must possess honey, and sugar, and salt, and facility and gayety in his discourse.
  • Quoted in translation by H. W. Longfellow, The Poets and Poetry of Europe, 2nd ed. (1870), Preface