Sobre los significados del laurel y sus fuentes clásicas en la Edad Media y el Siglo de Oro

Abstract

As part of the classical heritage, fully valid throughout the Middle Ages and the Golden Age, the laurel was still during this time the symbol of power, the military triumph, the gift of prophecy and, above all, the symbol of poetry as well as the sign of glory which can be achieved through the arts. It was also associated with it the belief, preserved to the present day and very much alive in our classical literature, that laurel cannot be struck by lightning. On the other hand, its branches were both the symbol and trophy of the heroic poetry, whereas myrtle was suitable for the erotic and the ivy for the minor poetry, mainly the pastoral or bucolic, but in spite of this, laurel is often used as seasoning and with its symbolic meaning in eclogues and pastoral books. Finally laurel is associated with love: Petrach, together with his followers, used it to refer to his beloved Laura, by means of the phonic association, and sometimes semantic as well, between Laura and laurel; and as for the Ovidian legend that tells Apollo's love for the nymph Daphne, who was turned into a laurel, its different versions, the serious as well as the burlesque ones, were plentiful during the Renaissance and Baroque periods.