15th & 16th Century Spanish Literature: Pre-Renaissance to Renaissance
The Pre-Renaissance (Unit 14)
Lyrical
Literary Tradition and Renewal
The literature of the 15th century covers subjects, forms, and genres that combine features of medieval or pre-Renaissance humanists.
The combination of medievalism and humanism is manifest in several ways. A surge in medieval fashion is reflected in the taste for chivalric themes and allegory and the influence of Provençal lyric.
The humanist influence manifests itself in issues such as the valuation of fame, admiration for the worship style, and the demise of the medieval schools of clergy and minstrelsy.
Petrarch’s love poetry as an ideal influenced all European lyric.
Learned Poetry: The Songbooks
Learned poetry in the 15th century explored different styles, concepts, and themes: love, satire, morals, etc. It is also called cancionero poetry because it was preserved in the songbooks of the time. These songbooks showcased the production of different times and places. The love poetry is modeled after medieval courtly love, of Provençal troubadour tradition. The moral issue’s lyrical flow mimics the Italian allegorical Dante, in the style of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and reflects the enthusiasm for Greco-Roman culture.
Jorge Manrique: The Verses on the Death of His Father
Jorge Manrique was a great poet of songs. His love poetry, within the artificiality of the genre, shows one of the most personal voices. He is valued for his unique poem, the verses, which he composed on the death of his father, Don Rodrigo.
The poem is an elegy, which expresses the pain of the poet. Manrique belonged to one of the great noble families. He participated in several battles with his father and died in combat at age 39. He embodies the ideal courtier, brave in battle and skilled in letters. He was among the last representatives of the warrior aristocracy.
The Structure
The composition consists of 40 stanzas of 12 lines: the ballads of broken foot. It is formed by a sextuplet of double verses of eight and four syllables, called since then manriqueña in honor of the poet. His rhyme scheme is: 8a, 8b, 8c, 8b, 4c, 8d, 8e, 4f, 8d, 8e, 4f.
Item
The songs develop the theme of death by meditating on the transience of life and eventually submitting to his father’s death.
The theme of death was most common in the Middle Ages. Death was seen as liberating because it opened the door to eternal life. But in the 14th and 15th centuries, it was customary to present death as a terrifying figure, which matched them all under his power (e.g., Dance of Death).
Three Parts:
Reflection
on the transience of life and the certainty of death. Classic themes as time goes on, or remember that you must die. Both motives are linked to the reflection on the vanity of things, inconsistent and ephemeral worldly goods.
Evocation
emotional and nostalgic of the past, with concrete examples of the general ideas above. What happened to…?
Individualization
around the father figure. Presenting his virtues, his exploits, his Christian resignation, and serenity to the arrival of his death.
In the end, death comforted the knight, saying that two ways of life await you: fame, which allows him to live in the memory of future generations, and eternal life. And true to these two lives opposes the revocation.
Style
It’s simple. The naturalness of language contrasts with the seriousness of the issue. Combination of simplicity and depth.
Meaning of the Couplets
Manrique shows sensitivity, while his father embodies chivalry and medieval Christian virtues. He displays pre-Renaissance features, such as the valuation of fame and the delicacy and elegance with which he treats the subject of death.
Narrative:
The Ballads
The prestige of the ballads is attached to the valuation of traditional birth to 15 by the end of humanism. The learned poets and courtiers are interested in songs that are transmitted orally, the courtiers of oral songs, regardless of learned poetry and music incorporated into the songbooks.
Old Romances
Anonymous romances are transmitted orally and present variants of the same poem. Some are about the same topics as the chanson de geste. The coincident similarity metric issues and justify paracer romances come from the songs. But they are also considered with the traditional lyric, with an anonymous author.
New Romances
Compositions written by unknown authors.
Characteristics of Romance
It is a lyric-narrative composition created to be sung. It consists of eight-syllable verses, rhyming in the verses assonants pairs, while odd numbers are loose. 8 -, 8th, 8 -, 8th.
“It’s an epic lyrical composition. It tells a little story combining resources of lyric and epic. De raiz lyrical, expressive language and syntax simple.
As the epic, its language is archaic, far from the colloquial, as appeals to the public, changing the narrative point of view, epic epithets ..
“The romance has a fragmentary nature, is a short story, sometimes a simple scene, it seems a fragment of which we know the beginning nor the end, going to the essential, and usually ends abruptly, with a mysterious tone and dramatic.
Style
Its style is very defined and specific. Resources in the amount of lyrical, epic, and dramatic. Single tone, strong, agile, and emotional.
Classification of Romance
- Epic: to pick up themes and characters from the chanson de geste: Roldán, el cid.
- Historical: to try to more recent history with a propagandist function. (this includes the border (guerras against the Moors, and the Moors, who have sympathetically to mulsulmanes.)
- Lyrical and romantic: lyrical ballads are very brief, and emotional, and addresses issues of love, loneliness, death … The romantic ballads, focus on the theme of love, but with more narrative and sometimes appear in the epic European characters like King Arthur.
The Prose in the 15th Century
Rise of the idealistic novels and satire.
The idealistic novel is one that presents a reality embellished and moving away from realism. Triumphed romances or chivalry.
The satire of manners. The most representative work is the corbacho, Alfonso Martinez de Toledo. Treat the love from a Christian perspective and anticortesana.
The Theater in the 15th Century
Gender less developed. Teatro medieval religious tradition and a new generation indicating the Renaissance theater. Theater to be read. (celestite)
La Celestina by Fernando de Rojas
It is the most significant work of the spiritual climate of the 15th century, reflects the confusion and pessimism of a transition period. It expresses the modern sensibility, from a pessimistic perspective on the radical individualism of the characters.
The Author and His Times
Fernando de Rojas was a lawman, who lived in different cities at the end of 15. It represents the modern writer, university, and city that is not of the aristocracy or church culture.
The book appeared in 1499 and did not contain the author. In 1502, it published an expanded edition with a prologue in which Fernando de Rojas says he wrote it to warn of the dangers in love crazy love.
“The literary genre is a work in dialogue that is modeled after the Italian humanistic comedy, Latin classics imitated Plautus and Terence. He wrote in Latin and was a theater to be read and not represented.
The matchmaker has features of the theater, and the novel.
- The characters: they are realistic and evolve throughout the play. It seems that everyone is swayed by the passions, Callisto and Melibea by love, and greed dominates the matchmaker and the servants. The characters share a strong individualism, and a world view: pagan, tragic, do not feel guilty, but victims of fate that governs their fates.
- The subject. Celestite combines the three issues of the day: good fortune, love, and death.
- Fortune moves the characters through the passions and leads to death. Chain of events, cause and effect.
- Celestite-Intent: The intent moralizing, presents the death of characters as a divine punishment for their rebellion against the norms of the time.
- Style: The more varied. It reflects the educated speech of the day, and also the colloquial by servants and prostitutes. Celestina adapts to different situations. (Rhetoric with Callisto, and popular language, with servants …)
The Renaissance: The Lyric
Forms and Themes of Renaissance Lyric
What defines the lyric of the 16th century is the arrival of Petrarchism, a new type of lyric that transforms the literary landscape. The footprint of Petrarch, who was first seen in the work of Garcilaso de la Vega.
The influence of Petrarch is an essential renewal not only of literary forms and themes but of aesthetic sensibility, its intimacy.
Live three streams:
- Poetry Cantigas is the continuation of the 16th century, with a predominance of octosyllable and cultish tone.
- Poetry traditional ballads and lyrical songs, which were widely spread oral and writing begin to be collected.
- Italianate-Poetry: Petrarch modeled and is the most representative of the educated Renaissance lyric. Its most important poet is Garcilaso de la Vega.
Form:
The hendecasyllable octosyllable replaces, and cultured stanzas like the sonnet, the triplets, the silva, and the lyre.
Topics:
love, nature, and mythology.
- “The Petrarchan love is platonic love ennobles it through the beloved is approaching perfection. In general, the unrequited love that produces dissatisfaction and melancholy.
- “Nature is the symbol of perfection and the simple life. In poetry presents idealized as a friendly scene, or perhaps reflecting the mood of the poet, the pastoral.
- “The mythological themes reflect the admiration of the Greco-Roman culture and give a tone pagan. The educated and the time were familiar with the characters, stories, and mythological symbols.
Garcilaso de la Vega (1501-1536)
It is the most representative poet of the Renaissance spirit. Introducer the Petrarchan. Embodies the model of a Renaissance man: he was the perfect courtier, cultivated, sensitive, and a brave warrior.
Of noble origin, a descendant of the Marquis de Santillana, was a poet-soldier whose life was marked by the Emperor Charles V, was part of his entourage.
His interest in education was that of a humanist: he knew Greek, Latin, French, and Tuscan. He died at age 36 in the assault on a fortress in Provence.
His work was short. It highlights the sonnets, and three Eclogues.
Eclogue I is the most valued. Salicio Nemoroso Pastors and express their grievances in a sweet and bucolic nature. Salicio While lamenting the disdain of his beloved Galatea mourns Nemoroso Elisa. Garcilaso represent himself, who sings to his beloved in life and after his death.
Eclogue II presents the history of the unfortunate loves of Albano and the shepherdess Camila. It is the most extensive and less bright.
Eclogue III, in a gentle, bucolic nature, four nymphs weave in a tapestry, tragic love stories. The eclogue ends with the singing of two pastors.
Love and Nature in the Poetry of Garcilaso
Garcilaso’s poetry revolves around two issues: love and nature. The feeling of love, or unhappy that is the center of his poetry, his poetry is so intimate, and it always accompanies the idealized nature of the characters.
Garcilaso is one of the great poets of love because the sum fashion Petrarchan theme of love and real sentiment, the poet lived.
Style
Garcilaso’s work involves the creation of Renaissance poetic, elegant, and natural. The renewal of the style lexicon is based on the refined but yet simple.
The Lyric in the Second Half of the 16th Century.
The lyric includes religious and moral issues, with authors such as Fray Luis de León, Santa Teresa de Jesus, and San Juan de la Cruz.
Fernando Herrera begins a cultist style and continues the Renaissance themes (love, nature, mythology …)
With the counter and isolation, the lyrics lose the ideals of universality and enthusiasm and even earlier pagan Renaissance flows are not lost, is merged with Catholicism and assimilated to the …
There has been talk of 2 schools or poetic tendencies:
- The school of Salamanca, represented by Fray Luis De Leon, who tends towards a natural and elegant lyricism, and moral and philosophical issues.
- “The Seville school, represented by Fernando de Herrera, cultish, seeking formal bellaza, bright and resonant, and dealing with secular subjects.
Along with these 2 trends emerging religious poetry: the ascetic, which is about how to achieve moral perfection, and mysticism, which reflects the soul’s union with divinity.
Fray Luis de León 1527-1591
His poetry synthesizes Renaissance culture and Christian thought.
It raises moral issues, influenced by Plato, Virgil, and Horace, from whom his stoicism: the desire for virtue, the desire for spiritual peace, or the praise of sentient life.
Life
His life, like St. Teresa and St. John of the Cross, reflects faithfully the confusing time to be alive, tensions between trends or Renaissance humanists and the susceptibility of civil and ecclesiastical powers.
It was a very cultured man, a humanist. The Inquisition condemned him for defending the reading of the Bible in its original language.
After 4 years of captivity was absorbed and eventually reaching high office.
Work
Besides being a poet, Brother II was an extraordinary translator of Latin and Hebrew, translated into Latin poets Horace and Virgil, and also translated the biblical psalms.
His Poetry
Most are odes, songs of praise, written in liras. The issues covered have a moral tone that reflects the influence of the classics: Plato, Virgil, and Horace. In yearning for virtue by mastering the passions, the search for the spiritual, or praise of the simple life, which contrasts with the social vanities.
Ode to the Retired Life
more knowledge
He also wrote odes to their friends.
In his poetic blend of Platonism and Christianity, because it presents the world as a painful exile.
Style
The language of Fray Luis de Leon is similar to that of Garcilaso, yal Renaissance model, because it is natural and elegant. Their style is very careful.
St. John of the Cross 1542-1591
The mystical poetry is one that expresses the experience of the soul’s union with divinity. The lyric of St. John of the Cross as the Santa Teresa expresses this experience of love symbols, evocative and emotional, inspired by the Bible, the language of love and nature.
Life
From a poor family, was protected by a noble, which enabled him to study philosophy and theology. Po’s admiration for St. Teresa of Jesus I become a Carmelite descalzao, and dedicated by her to the founding of new convents.
He wrote poems about his religious experiences.
It also suffered in prison, accused by his ex. Partners Carmelites footwear.
Mystical Poetry
Is the experience of the soul’s union with divinity. In this sense, the poetry of St. John and St. Teresa, because they are religious poetry as a central theme, the expression of this religious experience.
Ascetic purification of the soul, through sacrifice, prayer, and the shedding of worldly vanities.
The Poetry of St. John of the Cross
His work is published in 1618. His poetry often takes 1st traditional love poems, which gives a religious feeling with minor modifications. Poetry to the divine. This is the case of some love poems whose protagonist a pastor.
The original poetry of San Juan de la Cruz, is one that reflects his mystical experience. The poet finds a language inadequate to convey this kind of experience, and as you can not describe it, manifested through symbols.
The great poems of San Juan, dark night of the soul, spiritual song, and the flame of love alive, written in liras, reflecting the path that leads to union with God and the pleasure it provides.
Style
He created a new poetic language through symbols, which have their origin in the language of human love, in the Bible and in nature: the beloved night, the mountains, the cave …
It’s a very emotional speech, expressive, and intense: in the abundance of exclamations, the alliteration and enumerations and to express the inexpressible.
The Renaissance: The Prose and Drama
The Narrative of the 16th Century
In the 16th century, two tendencies coexist narratives: the idealistic novels (romances, romances ..) and the realistic novel.
In the literature of the 16th-century idealists won both stories coming from the Middle Ages (sentimental novels and romances) and the Renaissance: pastoral novels and Byzantine.
Other types of stories displayed: Moorish novels: narrative idealistic romances Moorish and the picaresque novel, with an intense realism.
The Idealistic Novel
Those that succeed in the 16th century are:
- the novel of chivalry: that places the action in the Middle Ages, and whose hero is a gentleman who represents the model of epic hero.
- the pastoral: it tells stories of love between shepherds in a bucolic setting.
- Byzantine’s novel, which has adventure featuring a pair of lovers of the highest lineage.
- Moorish’s novel, which develops an idealized action in the Muslim world.
“The books of chivalry were the preferred reading in court. They presented themselves as true stories that were written in some strange language and the author stated as the translator of the novel.
Highlights: Amadis of Gaul.
“The pastoral novel incorporates the bucolic setting of the Eclogues, Virgil and draws on the arcadia of Sannazaro, and tells stories of love between shepherds. The most famous is the seven books of the target, by Jorge Montemayor, or Galatea de Cervantes.
“The novel mimics an account bizantina discovered in 1534 and follows the adventures of a couple in love, always of high lineage. It combines the love story with countless adventures: trips, kidnapping, shipwrecks, separation … It usually has a happy ending.
“The novel won morisca following the publication of the history of the Abencerraje.
A taste for exoticism, refinement, and the color of an idealized pervivirá Muslim world in many later writers.
The Realistic Novel. Lazarillo
With the Lazarillo de Tormes introduced a new kind of narrative: the picaresque novel, which represents the current and critical realist novel of the 16th century.
The novel tells the adventures of Lazaro de Tormes, a servant of many masters. It is narrated in the form of an autobiographical epistle. It is an extensive menu featuring the main character throughout his life.
The Lazarillo de Tormes is an anonymous work, published in the last years of the reign of Charles V. The oldest edition is 1554.