Contextualidad y clausura: «pues mi pena veis...»

Poetic closure and the related question of textual unity are problems which enable us to discover thematic and formal means whereby verbal artistic structures are delimited and defined. The aim of this article is to analyze the various levels of textual closure in a traditional poem. In opposition to linguistic explanations of literariness, this exercise attemps to define poetic closure as a symbolic device that transforms the literariness in a Peircean deloma. Successful closure is achieved when predetermined patterns of terminal features provide a perspective from which the internal elements of the poem may be viewed both in their relationship to one another and as a comprehensive whole. Starting form a hypothetical etymon, microtextual procedures show analogous amphibologies, revealing at the same time a concealed play of protosigns. Finally a rhythmical interpretation of the poem confirms its extensional strenght.