17th Century Spanish Baroque Poetry: Themes and Styles
17th Century Spanish Baroque Poetry
The Baroque poets reflect the contradiction between the ideal and light classical revival and a new pessimistic and disillusioned outlook.
Themes in Baroque Poetry
Love remains the favorite theme, but it is linked to a reflection on the transience of life, death, and the passage of time.
The passage of time is reflected in the short life of the rose and the lily, and in ancient ruins.
They continue using mythological themes, but choose tragic stories starring an antihero.
The Decline and Crisis in Spain
Poems on literary polemics between different authors multiply.
Stanzas and Verses
Baroque lyric poetry uses cultivated forms of Italian origin, as well as popular forms.
The use of eleven-syllable verses results in forms such as the lira, silva, and especially the sonnet. The use of popular romance and letrilla stanzas becomes generalized.
Styles: Culteranismo and Conceptismo
During the 17th century, two ways of understanding literature coexisted: culteranismo and conceptismo.
Culteranismo
Culteranismo is characterized by an extreme complication of language, an excess of literary figures, mythological references, and strange and violent twists. The poetry of Góngora exemplifies this style.
Conceptismo
Conceptismo focuses on an extreme complication of the content. It tries to multiply ingenious and elaborate associations between concepts and words. Its main representatives are Lope de Vega and Francisco de Quevedo.
Luis de Góngora
Luis de Góngora is the most representative figure of culteranismo. His poems push Baroque aesthetic procedures to their limit.
Life
Góngora was born and died in Córdoba. He received holy orders and was chaplain at the court of Philip III. His life was marked by his passion for literature and strong friendships with the Duke of Lerma and the Count-Duke of Olivares, as well as enmities with Lope de Vega and Francisco de Quevedo.
Work
Góngora’s work has two facets: a simple poet and a dark, almost incomprehensible poet. However, both aspects are mixed in his compositions, both popular and cultivated. Góngora cultivated throughout his life the romance and letrilla, to which he gave a satirical and burlesque tone.
Góngora is one of the masters of the sonnet. In this composition, he expressed all sorts of subjects: praise, scenes of everyday life, parental or love themes. His great poems are purely cultivated: Soledades, Panegyric to the Duke of Lerma, and Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea.
Francisco de Quevedo
Quevedo was a man of vast culture. His sarcastic and ironic character hides a deep sense of disappointment.
Life
Born in Madrid, he spent his life at court. He spent four years imprisoned for writing a poem offensive to the king. He died in Villanueva de los Infantes.
Work
Quevedo’s poetry is very diverse in themes and tones. It fuses opposites: the noble with the plebeian, the beautiful with the degrading.
His love poetry is the most exciting in Spanish literature. The constant love, sonnet, disability, and death stand out. Beyond satirical and mocking poetry, its expressive force reaches a height never reached. Everything can be the target of his attacks: Góngora, women, doctors, love, politicians. His moral and religious poetry is full of pessimism and frustration. He treats all possible topics: hunts, parties of the court, bulls, women, or their weaknesses…