This essay undertakes, in the first place, a theoretical approach to the traditional category of the Spanish article from the point of view of text linguistics or, more properly speaking, from a pragmatic-linguistic one, since we assume the interdependent relation among the different components which integrate the general communicative field; and, secondly, a modest and specific practical contribution -by bringing the results of the theoretical considerations to bear on Garcilaso de la Vega's "Canción V"- to the solution of such an arduous problem as literarity.