Enrique Banchs was an Argentine

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

 poet. He published all his work in the space of four years at the beginning of the 20th century, then lay dormant until his death. In his four works, Las barcas (1907), El libro de los elogios (1908), El cascabel del halcón (1909) and La urna (1911). Banchs cultivated an ephemeral, classicistic

Classicism

Classicism, in the arts, refers generally to a high regard for classical antiquity, as setting standards for taste which the classicists seek to emulate. The art of classicism typically seeks to be formal and restrained: of the Discobolus Sir Kenneth Clark observed, "if we object to his restraint...

 style drawing inspiration from the Siglo de Oro

Spanish Golden Age

The Spanish Golden Age is a period of flourishing in arts and literature in Spain, coinciding with the political rise and decline of the Spanish Habsburg dynasty. El Siglo de Oro does not imply precise dates and is usually considered to have lasted longer than an actual century...

. His final work was composed in sonnet

Sonnet

A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...

s, a form which had already been almost completely abandoned by that time. Banchs published nothing during the final fifty years of his life, but he remained a part of the Argentine literary scene, and a member of the Argentine Academy of Letters

Argentine Academy of Letters

The Academia Argentina de Letras is the academy in charge of studying and prescribing the use of the Spanish language in Argentina. Since its establishment, on August 13, 1931, it has maintained ties with the Royal Spanish Academy and the other Spanish-language academies that are members to the...

.