15th-Century Spanish Literature: Poetry and Prose
Jorge Manrique
Manrique, who participated in the tastes of his time, wrote love poems, following the guidelines of the troubadour tradition of courtly love and with the characteristic resources of the songbook. The poet’s compositions that have survived, some fifty, were not sufficient to achieve the place of honor in literature. He reaches it with a very short work, but highly lyrical and human insight: the Verses on the Death of His Father.
Verses on the Death of His Father
The death of Master Don Rodrigo, father of Jorge Manrique, inspires the poet’s famous elegy. It appears, initially, to mourn the loss of a loved one and praise his virtues, but it becomes a full treatment of Christian philosophy on the transience of life and death. The transcendence of the verses are moral poetry, inviting reflection on the lightness and inconsistency of earthly things. They have also been classified as a funeral sermon for the poet’s exhorting attitude and tone. From the beginning, the sententious tone demands reflection from those who listen, urging them to be placed in the plane of transcendence and, from there, meditate, with all the seriousness that the subject requires, on the value of life and death.
Elements Present in the Verses
Manrique brings to this work an entire medieval tradition around the mixed feelings and concerns raised by death. The unanswered question ubi sunt? (where are you?) this rhetorical question, used as a stylistic device by the poet, asks what has become of those who have enjoyed life in another time. It stresses the consistency of mortality and leads to a transcendental plane, to place man at the decisive moment of death. The fickle hand of fortune plays with human destiny and that of fame understood as an earthly life situated between the eternal. The originality of Manrique’s treatment is to have known how to express the sincerity of her experience through personal language. The couplets, lightweight and natural, doctrinal and solemn, still captivate people today. They express the way Christian Manrique approaches life and accepts death naturally, in a manner consistent with the life that has been lived. His melodious voice takes rhythm through the rhyme, away from the stilted and artificial language of other elegies of the period.
The Traditional Poetry of the Ballads
While the cultured and refined lyrical exercise was required among the courtiers of the time, romance, holding hands of the minstrels, gained ground, to become the most genuine expression of our popular literature.
Old Romancero and New Ballads
The name old romanvero is given to the collection of romances of the 15th century that includes the medieval epic tradition of the ancient songs of deeds and some other compounds in the 14th century. It is a traditional genre, as these romances are part of the oral tradition of the people that is transmitted orally from generation to generation. They are anonymous poems and compositions that, due to oral transmission, have been reworked over time. The old ballads, which copy and disclose in writing the oral romances, show the interest that they had awakened in 15th-century poets. Subsequently, poets of the Golden Age joined this tradition, attracted by the charm of its musicality and the vividness of their stories. The romances composed by the learned poets of the 16th and 17th centuries, Renaissance and Baroque, among which are Lope, Góngora and Quevedo, constitute the new or artistic Ballads.
Origin and Characteristics of Romance
The romances tie in with the general tradition of the European ballad. They are closely related to the epic poems and some researchers believe that they come from them, splitting the verses into monorhymed lines with caesura, regularized in 16 syllables, the old songs (traditional ballads). According to this theory, the most active passages of epic poems would have come to life and become independent. Word of mouth would have shaped them according to the fantasy of the reciters. At the same time, in the 14th and 15th centuries, new romances created by minstrels in imitation of the traditional ones (minstrel romances) would enrich the existing set, incorporating romantic and poetic themes, but in line with the new aesthetic in vogue. Both the medieval poem and the stanza of the romance are formed by a series of indeterminate octosyllabic verses with assonance rhyme in pairs, leaving the odd ones loose. They present narrative elements of epic and romance, along with elements of poetry and dramatic language. Their dynamic language creates dramatic and emotional tension. The pace of the octosyllable is brief and sonorous. An atmosphere of suspense and mystery is created by giving it a strong emotional charge.
Classification of Romance
Based on a thematic approach, the following types of romances are distinguished:
- Historical: Revolving around the exploits of national heroes.
- Border and Moors: Centered on the wars between Christians and Muslims during the Reconquest.
- Legendary: Focusing on the deeds of the European heroes of the Carolingian cycle.
- Romantic and lyrical: Containing fictional stories.
The Castilian Prose in the 15th Century
The humanistic current attached importance to classical texts and authors, which benefited European Romance languages, which were struggling to match the elegance and expressive power of Latin. Fifteenth-century Castilian was going through a period marked by the imitation of Latin syntax and vocabulary. The language is sometimes complicated and contrived, but it also learns a lot from the mother tongue and the art of speech. As Castilian gains balance and harmony of shapes, prose begins its heyday. The refinement of the language and the greater complexity are welcome among the new reading public of cities seeking more consciously literary works. Didactic prose grew in this century. As for narrative prose fiction, there are two variants: the books of chivalry and the sentimental novel.
The Didactic Prose
During the fifteenth century, the popular genre of the sermon was adopted, but developed to a higher level than before. The parts were destined for the people and gave them moral indoctrination regarding various human behaviors. In this genre, the Archpriest of Talavera stands out, who had moral views and criticisms of life and customs. In the context of medieval misogynist literature, he offers the originality of incorporating conversational, lively, and casual street language. The scenes are taken from everyday reality and have a grace and charm that presents the spice of life when painted with joy, irony, and humor. Like the Archpriest of Hita, the Talavera uses the writing of that from which he would distance the reader: women. The Archpriest’s style of prose is part of the fifteenth-century educated Latinist, but the spontaneity and freshness of the popular language that he incorporates in his pages make it the precedent of La Celestina and Lazarillo. In popular speech, the Archpriest reaches a level of artistry. Its importance is due to the contribution that his work means for the evolution of Castilian prose.