Most of the poems discussed in this book were written between 1580 and 1650. There is a good reason for this: quite simply, that the first half of the seventeenth century saw a concentration of poetic talent which is unique in the history of Spanish literature, though the roots of what was achieved lay firmly embedded in the previous century. Again, if one thinks in terms of individual writers, the matter of dates becomes clearer: of the three major poets of the period, Luis de Góngora (1561–1627) and Lope de Vega (1562–1635) both began their literary careers in 1580 or shortly after; Francisco de Quevedo, the youngest – born, by coincidence, in 1580 – lived on until 1645, by which time the poetic tradition itself seemed to be nearing exhaustion. Yet, even so, the situation is by no means clear-cut: the dramatic verse of Calderón (1600–81) triumphantly prolongs the dominant poetic mode well into the second half of the century and, later still, the work of the Mexican poet Sor Juana Inás de la Cruz (1648–95) shows that earlier seventeenth-century practice was still very much alive for anyone with sufficient skill and intelligence to learn from it.

It is at the beginning of the period, however, that one needs to make most qualifications. If 1580 is a useful working date – it also marks the appearance of Herrera's famous commentary on the work of Garcilaso de la Vega (1501?–36), the first great poet of the Spanish Renaissance – it in no sense interrupts the feeling of continuity which must have been as evident at the time as it is now.