Kinds of Obscurity in Gongora's "Fabula de Pyramo y Tisbe"

Gongora's fully completed 1 burlesque romance of Pyramus and Thisbe shares with his other major poems,2 the characteristics of deliberate complexity, dense texture, and involved syntactical arrangements. Among early readers, its many obscure and difficult passages provoked controversies, which, in turn, gave rise to sympathetic and erudite defenses. Two scholars, principally, made comprehension of the work more easily accessible: Jose Pellicer de Salas de Tovar, whose Lecciones solemnes 3 include an explication of many of the verses of the Pyramus and Thisbe poem, and Cristobal de Salazar Mardones, who contributed an entire volume to it.4 The attention given to this particular work was undoubtedly due in part to Gongora's special preference for it. Pellicer prefaces his comments with the statement that, " Entre las obras que mas