Generic experimentation is at the heart of the major poetic innovations of the Spanish Golden Age. The passage from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century marked a dynamic moment of transition in the evolution of aesthetic forms. This volume of essays, which unites contributions from a cross-section of specialists in the field of Hispanic poetry, presents a comprehensive exploration of the unprecedented flowering of Hispanic culture associated with this period. It not only places aesthetic questions in their broader European context, but looks beyond the confines of Europe to interrogate the key terms of its title, balancing panoramic approaches to questions of genre with the insights afforded by detailed readings of individual texts. The publication examines the aesthetic and ideological criteria on which assessments of artistic importance have been based, considering the relationship between genre and 'major' and 'minor' authors, and exploring the factors which precipitated a text's passage from the periphery to the centre of the canon. English translation for marketing purposes Generic experimentation is at the heart of the major poetic innovations of the Spanish Golden Age. The passage from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century marked a dynamic moment of transition in the evolution of aesthetic forms. This volume of essays, which unites contributions from a cross-section of specialists in the field of Hispanic poetry, presents a comprehensive exploration of the unprecedented flowering of Hispanic culture associated with this period. It not only places aesthetic questions in their broader European context, but looks beyond the confines of Europe to interrogate the key terms of its title, balancing panoramic approaches to questions of genre with the insights afforded by detailed readings of individual texts. The publication examines the aesthetic and ideological criteria on which assessments of artistic importance have been based, considering the relationship between genre and 'major' and 'minor' authors, and exploring the factors which precipitated a text's passage from the periphery to the centre of the canon. Rodrigo Cacho is currently a University Senior lecturer in Spanish Golden Age Culture in the University of Cambridge. Anne Holloway is currently a Lecturer in the University of Glasgow.