Ponce de Leon, FRAY LUIS, a celebrated Spanish poet, was born in 1527, probably at Granada. He studied at Salamanca, entered the order of St Augustine, and became professor of Theology there in 1561. His translation and interpretation of the Song of Solomon brought him five years' imprisonment from the tribunal of the Inquisition at Valladolid. Released at length and reinstated in his chair, he quietly resumed his lectures with the words: 'As we observed in our last discourse.' In 1580 he published a satisfactorily orthodox Latin commentary on the Song of Solomon, later his De los Nombres de Christo (1583-85) and La Perfecta Casada (1583), full of imagery, eloquence, and enthusiasm, and both in prose. Shortly before his death, which occurred in August 1591, he had been appointed general of his order. His poetical remains were first published by Quevedo at Madrid in 1631, under the title Obras Proprias y Traducciones. The latter consist of translations from Virgil's Eclogues and the Georgics, the Odes of Horace, and the Psalms.
His original poems are few, but they are among the masterpieces of Spanish lyrical poetry.
There are German monographs by Wilkens (1866) and Reusch (1873); also a Spanish Life by Tejeda (1863).