Acrostic

An acrostic (from the Greek ákros: extreme, and stikhos: line, verse or structure) is a poetic or prosaic composition in which that the initial, middle or final letters of each verse or sentence are read vertically and form a vocabulary or phrase. By extension, the word or phrase formed with the acrostic composition is also called acrostic. It contains letters (at the beginning, middle, or end of its verses) with which a word or phrase can be formed.

The Life of the Acrostic

The Provençal poets are considered by some to be the first to devote themselves to this genre of compositions and the Castilian poets apparently learned it from them.

This type of literary artifice has spread especially in historical moments in which elaborate forms have had more prestige, such as the literary Baroque.

Famous Acrostics

Acrostic of Odoario in the Cathedral of Santa Maria de Lugo.

The most characteristic acrostic of the Spanish language is made up of the verses that make up the Prologue of La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas, (1499), in whose eighth lines the following sentence can be read:

Bachelor Fernando de Rojas finished the Comedy of Calisto and Melibea and was born in Puebla de Montalbán.

The first verses are as follows:

EI spit and usually cover up

Las lack of ingenuity in the clumsy tongues;

Bthe opposite publishes their menguas

AI that much speaks without much feeling.

Como the ant that stops going

Hsniffing on the ground with the provision,

Iact with wings of his perdition:

LLThey kept her up, she doesn't know where to go.

El air enjoyed, foreign and strange,

Ris already made of birds that fly;

In the Cancionero general castellano this octave of major art by Luis de Tovar can be read, in which the acrostic Francyna can be read. It also has another peculiarity and that is that the name of another lady is included in the body of each verse: Eloysa, Ana, Guiomar, Leonor, Blanca, Isabel, Elena, Marya.

FEroz, no consuElo and salute lady,

Remediate work a nadie believer,

A Who does?guided seaso fierce,

N♪ lion or rt'ama.

CIn evils doblan cagives time to what penis,

And in you of such aisa belso settle,

Nor you're raw.in ayes to affront

aI that for youSea already Life doesn't have.

The ten books of Fortuna de Amor that the Sardinian poet Antonio de Lofraso wrote and published in Barcelona in 1573, conclude with a composition entitled Testament of Love that consists of 168 verses in 56 tercets whose initials say:

Antony de Lofraso sart de Lalquer mefecyt estant en Barselona en lany myl y sincosents setanta y dos per dar fi al presente lybre de Fortuna de Amor compost per servysy de lylustre y my señor Conte de Quirra.

In the drama La Corte del Buen Retiro by Patricio de la Escosura, an acrostic sonnet is read whose initials say Isabel de Borbón.

Ira from heaven, love, were your shots:

Sthe one who worships an impossible object:

Arde and his fire, which concealed respect,

Bbranching exhale in quick sighs.

En vain soften bronzes and porphyros

Ltears of pain. Cruel Aleto!

DGood luck! Don't move a single shave,

E- both man changes in sharp turns.

Barbare love, give a hope,

O to forget to stir up his contempt.

Rthe bonds of life:

Byou already suffered from your revenge

ODon't listen, love, I beg foolish.

No: ungrateful: never hated. It is very necessary to learn