15th Century Renaissance Poetry: Themes, Forms, and Key Authors
15th Century Poetry
The ETAPS 2: 1511-1543 songs appear general/1543-1590 diffusion of new poetry.
The themes and motifs of Renaissance poetry come from: the Petrarchan and classical tradition.
Forms of Poetry
- Rhyme sonnet: 2 fixed quartets and 2 variable trios (ABBA-ABBA-CDC-CDC)
- Lira: Hendecasyllable and heptasyllable (aBabB)
- Song: Petrarchan, several stanzas (estancias) with hendecasyllables and heptasyllables
- 3rd chained: ABA BCB CDC (used in elegies, epistles, Eclogues …)
- Octava real: ABABABCC (epic and narrative verse par excellence)
Garcilaso
His work represents the final accommodation of Italian forms. Combines musicality and balance.
After Garcilaso’s Poetry
The poetry scene is broad and Spanish enriches. Fernando de Herrera, Fray Luis, and San Juan de la Cruz are the poets who stand out.
Fernando de Herrera
Had an excellent liberal education and was considered a better poet than Garcilaso. In 1582, he published a collection of sonnets, poems, songs, elegies, and eclogues. His aesthetic ideas were exposed in a lengthy commentary.
San Juan de la Cruz
Studied philosophy and theology and belonged to the order of the Carmelites, participating in its reform. He is one of the greatest lyric poets of the Castilian language. He is framed within the tradition of Garcilaso, but his writing is full of originality.
Themes and Motifs
- Carpe diem: Enjoy the time
- Locus amoenus: Pleasant place
- Tempus fugit: Time goes fast
- Aurea mediocritas: Golden mediocrity
- Beatus ille: The calm
Garcilaso: Ideal Man
The ideal man was a Renaissance figure. His work includes almost all genres and themes of the beloved tradition. Love, nature, and friends are the constant themes of his lyrics.
Sonnets and Songs
The love recount processes are predestined.
- Poetry before 1533: Date on which Isabel Freyre dies. The tone is rhetoric about love and the Valencian poet cancionero Ausiàs March.
- Post-1533: The sentimentality and melancholy are softer, and the last sonnets refer to mythology.
The Eclogues
- Eclogue Second: The first he wrote and the most extensive. It relates the unhappy loves of Camilla and Albanio.
- Eclogue First: Written divided into 2 parts, and the new Renaissance sentimentality appears (Petrarchan songbook in synthesis).
- Eclogue Third: Poem in real octave that tells 4 stories (the first 3 in which the nymphs weave myths, and the last shows the case of Elisa). The poem closes with the amebeo song (manifestation of loving feelings).
Fray Luis de Leon
Was an Augustinian monk and professor at the University of Salamanca. He was imprisoned, accused of having translated the Bible into the vernacular and making comments in class against the Vulgate.
Poetic Work
Formed by Odes. Metrica: mainly the lira but also stanzas aliradas. Themes: exaltation of virtue, mastery of the passions, harmony… contemplation. Style: new poetic language, cultured and refined.
Great Odes
- Ode to Francisco de Salinas: Relates to spiritual and musical harmony.
- Ode to Loarte: Hymn to universal harmony.
Prose Work
- Of the Names of Christ: A very complex theological treatise on the different names of God in the Bible.
- The Perfect Wife: A workbook that is part of the literature of the time of marriage.