17th-Century Spanish Literature: Baroque Era

Posted on Oct 10, 2024 in Music

Item 16: 17th-Century Spanish Literature

Historical and Cultural Context

History & Society

The 17th century in Spain was marked by social and political decay. It was the era of absolute monarchy, where luxury and misery coexisted, revitalizing old social and religious prejudices. Political and social discontent manifested itself repeatedly. Spanish society showed great contrasts: the misery caused depopulation of the countryside, hunger, and an abundance of beggars, coexisting with a taste for luxury and pomp. This simultaneity of luxury and misery is characteristic of the period. Overall, it was a period of impoverishment, rural migration to the cities, and sharp tax increases. While the number of nobles expanded, some social and religious prejudices gained new force.

Culture

Culture was brilliant, charged, and varied, yet betrayed a deep pessimism, reflecting the climate of insecurity, confusion, and fear stemming from the social crisis. With the Baroque, the conservative trend gained influence with the Counter-Reformation, accentuating the decline of the humanist ideal of tolerance, rationality, and balance. These social contrasts had their counterpart in the cultural world. Baroque religiosity coexisted with cynical, sexual, and burlesque tones.

Arts & Literature

Baroque art tended to be difficult and artificial. Its purpose was to impress or cause admiration, valuing disproportion and overwhelming ornamentation. Baroque literature reflected the concerns and tastes of the time, reaching particular depth when treating the theme of disappointment, characteristic of the era. Regarding language, the natural elegance of the Renaissance was replaced by a taste for the difficult and surprising. Baroque themes alluded to the disappointment or disillusionment latent at the time, such as death, ruin, and life as a dream. We see the development of satire, an interest in the trivial and inconsequential, and the mixture of low and burlesque elements in the same work.

The Baroque: Lyric Poetry and Prose

Themes and Lyrical Forms

In the 17th century, lyric poetry achieved high quality and diversity in themes, tones, and forms. Poets showcasing this variation include Francisco de Quevedo and Luis de Góngora. Alongside them stands Lope de Vega, with a more natural style. Baroque poetry featured sharp contrasts in themes (serious or inconsequential), tones (reflective or burlesque), and form or style (cultured or popular). The sonnet and ballad reached great perfection, used for any subject, as did the décima and silva, a free combination of heptasyllabic and hendecasyllabic lines with consonant rhyme.

Conceptism and Culteranismo

Two tendencies are distinguished in the Baroque style: conceptism, based on wit, and culteranismo, concerned with formal beauty. Francisco de Quevedo and Baltasar Gracián represent conceptism, while Luis de Góngora represents culteranismo. Traditionally, conceptism and culteranismo have been differentiated, but both aim for elaborate expression through inventive associations, appealing to a minority as they demand interpretive effort from the reader.

  • Conceptism reflects the Baroque aesthetic centered on the intellect, the play of ideas or concepts, through paradox, antithesis, and polysemy. It tends towards concise, elliptical language and often uses metaphors, frequently derogatory. It flourished in prose. Quevedo and Gracián are the clearest conceptist writers.
  • Culteranismo: Cultured poetry aspired to create a poetic language different from common language. Culteranismo is characterized by the intensification and accumulation of resources employed by Baroque poets. Cultured poets pursued formal brilliance and employed rich, embellished metaphors and hyperboles that are difficult to interpret. They incorporated a cultist lexicon, imitated Latin syntax, and made numerous mythological allusions. Culteranismo flourished in poetry, with Góngora as its main defender.

In the 17th century, poetry also offered a simpler model, represented by Lope de Vega.

Luis de Góngora

Góngora is the creator of culteranismo: a minority, cultured, brilliant, and difficult style of poetry. He invented a metaphorical language that departs from common language and presents a transformed and beautified world, evident in his songs, sonnets, and poems. He also wrote poems with a mocking tone and traditional forms, collected in romances and letrillas.

Work

Góngora invented a brilliant, refined, and elitist poetic language. His poetry aimed to transform reality through metaphors. In general, Góngora’s poetry is aesthetic and sensory, appealing to the reader’s intelligence but not expressing his feelings.

  • Learned Poetry: From the beginning, Góngora wrote cultured poetry in his sonnets, but this trend intensified from 1609. He then wrote The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea and the Solitudes, which aroused conflicting reactions: immense admiration or outright rejection. Culteranismo is characterized by:
    • Intensification of lexical and syntactic cultism
    • Accumulation of beautifying metaphors
    • Abundance of mythological allusions and conceptist wordplay
  • The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea is a long poem in stanzas on a mythological theme. Góngora starts with a classic theme, but the poem’s novelty lies in its language: the creation of a poetic language far removed from the common, requiring interpretive effort and expertise to decipher mythological periphrases or certain metaphors.
  • The Solitudes: Góngora planned a poem in four parts, but only finished the first and almost completed the second. The argument becomes an excuse to create a hymn to nature, to the simple and humble life, and to everyday objects. The contrast between the subject and the brilliance and richness of the language is surprising.
  • Letrillas and Romances represent Góngora’s traditional side. In his time, they were sung, and later collected in Romanceros. The themes of Góngora’s romances include pastoral, lyric, Moorish, mythological, and captive themes. Sometimes he mixes a classical mythological theme with a mocking tone. In the satirical ballads and letrillas, conceptism, concise and witty, usually dominates.

Francisco de Quevedo

Poetry

Quevedo was a well-known author in his time. Although his works were not published until after his death, his compositions circulated in manuscripts, and his romances and letrillas were sung. His satirical poems were especially popular, some circulating anonymously.

Two distinct styles are present in Quevedo’s poetry:

  • Serious, reflective poetry, in which the poet expresses his feelings and ideas with a tormented tone. This includes metaphysical, moral, religious, and love poems. His poems are reflections on the meaning of life, death, and the passage of time. Quevedo is the most Baroque poet in his treatment of the transience of life and the certainty of death. The poems raise moral issues such as power or wealth from a Stoic perspective, where pessimism prevails. In his love poems, Petrarchan themes combine with a very personal emotional violence.
  • Witty and playful poetry. This satirical style predominates the poet’s taste for linguistic experimentation. This poetry offers a critical look at society from a burlesque, hyperbolic, and grotesque perspective. The themes are varied, especially critical of Góngora, the target of numerous burlesque poems by Quevedo.
Style

Quevedo’s poetry tends towards conceptism, aiming to surprise by combining new concepts. Typical traits include:

  • Extremely original metaphors, beautifying or deforming, personifying objects and objectifying human beings.
  • The creation of new words, sometimes derivative or compound.
  • The special use of grammatical categories: verbs used with substantive value.
  • Abundant puns.

Narrative and Didactic Prose

17th-century narrative presents new developments compared to the previous century: romances declined, while the picaresque novel, the novella, and allegorical narrative developed. In didactic prose, satire thrived, reflecting the spiritual climate of the time. Cervantes did not create a school in the 17th century because his work responded to Renaissance ideals. The Byzantine novel and the novella, exemplified by the Exemplary Novels, were cultivated. The novel combines allegorical elements and the structure of the Byzantine novel. Novels like Marcia Leonarda follow the model of Cervantes’s short stories. The chivalric romance disappeared (influenced by Cervantes). The picaresque genre flourished because it conveyed the critical, pessimistic, and disillusioned vision of the time. Mateo Alemán stands out with Guzmán de Alfarache (the first part published in 1599 and again in 1604), and Quevedo with El Buscón (published in 1604). The picaresque hero is bad by nature, but with the capacity to repent and be saved.

Quevedo’s Prose

Quevedo wrote rich prose, dominated by political and moral issues. His tone is pessimistic, sometimes bitter, even when masked by humor. Quevedo’s prose works are varied:

  • Moral and allegorical satires
  • Political works
  • Philosophical and moral works
  • Literary criticism
  • Festive or burlesque works
  • Picaresque novel
El Buscón

El Buscón is one of the great picaresque works, reflecting the moral decadence of the era and showcasing a conceptist style. When Quevedo wrote this novel, he followed the established model of the genre, seen in Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzmán de Alfarache. The characteristic features of the picaresque novel are: an autobiographical tale about the misadventures of a humble hero serving many masters; various episodes explaining the protagonist’s final, disgraceful state, which appears as the inevitable result of an unwanted inheritance marking the protagonist; and the satirization of certain social situations.

The Baroque: Theater

17th-Century Drama

In the Baroque period, drama reached its peak and achieved great popularity with playwrights like Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca. The success of public theaters, which coexisted with religious and courtly drama, is noteworthy.

Religious Drama

This manifested through autos sacramentales, short one-act plays presenting characters as allegorical figures. They treated religious subjects and presented a conflict between good and evil, resolved with the triumph of good. Autos were performed outdoors around Corpus Christi. This type of theater was the most appropriate instrument to explain essential Catholic dogma to the people.

Court Theater

These plays were performed in halls or courtyards of palaces. Scenic innovations allowed for spectacular special effects. These developments are remarkably visible in mythological or fantastical comedies, captivating the court.

Public Theater

In each town, courtyards were set up to perform plays. These courtyards attracted all sorts of audiences. Nobles rented the balconies of seasonal residents. To avoid recognition, many came wearing Venetian masks. A stage was set up (a platform against the wall), and there was also a refreshment stand (selling drinks and fruit). The rest of the audience paid for tickets (with different prices depending on the area). Women sat on benches in the patio (cazuela). The rest of the audience stood. Plays began at sunset and ended at dusk. The public had to be entertained, as it was a boisterous crowd. Plays could not be performed on certain religious holidays. The plays did not follow classical patterns and, instead of five acts, had three: introduction, middle, and end.

Lope de Vega (1562-1635)

Poetry and Storytelling

Lope de Vega was a great poet, the simplest or most natural of his time. He wrote traditional lyrics, sonnets, and epic poetry. In his love and religious poetry, with its autobiographical background, he achieved emotional intensity. As a narrator, he experimented with a variety of genres. Lope was known for his ballads and sonnets. He abundantly cultivated traditional lyrical forms and themes of love, religion, and burlesque in his sonnets. His poetry is emotional, sincere, and human in tone, using characteristic Baroque resources, but in a subdued manner. He also composed epic poetry, much in the Renaissance style. As a narrator, Lope cultivated the short novel in the style of Cervantes, the Byzantine novel, the pastoral novel (with a more realistic tone than usual), and especially the novel in dialogue, recreating his youthful loves from a mature perspective.

Theater

In the late 16th century, Lope de Vega initiated a simpler form of theater, molded to public taste and giving agility to the performance. This new theatrical form was called the new comedy. Lope created a theater that connected with the audience of his time and established new paths for the theater.

New Comedy

The new comedy, the dramatic form created by Lope de Vega, introduced many innovations compared to previous theater: it abandoned the classical unities, had three acts, mixed the tragic with the comic, included graceful and lyrical scenes, etc. Lope shared his ideas about theater in his book New Art of Writing Plays, published in 1609. Lope de Vega’s renewal is based on the break with classical norms:

  • Rejection of the three unities. According to Aristotle, a play should respect the unities of time, place, and action: it had to take place in a single space, within a maximum time of one day, and present a single theme or conflict. Lope, however, uses numerous locations, providing dynamism and spectacle, and stretches the time freely. The unity of action is the most respected by Lope, although he generally establishes a secondary plot that contrasts with the main action. The variety of characters, serious or carefree, adds contrast to the performance.
  • The play is presented in three acts. Lope’s plays adopt this innovation. Broadly speaking, the acts correspond to the exposition, the rising action, and the resolution.
  • Mixture of tragic and comic. Lope de Vega’s theater mixes tones and different environments.
  • Use of different types of verse, i.e., polymetry. Octosyllabic verse predominates, although other meters are abundant.
  • Decorum is the matching of the type of character and their way of speaking. Each character must use language that characterizes them, giving credibility and variety to the work.
  • Figure of the gracioso. This character evolved from Lope de Rueda’s fool and sometimes becomes quite complex.
  • Inclusion of lyrical elements. Songs and dances enliven the spectacle and give it color and impact.
Themes

Lope de Vega defended freedom in the choice of themes. His theater presented varied subjects, but the author felt that the issues that most moved audiences were honor and love. According to their themes, Lope de Vega’s plays can be classified into the following groups:

  • Religious themes appear in morality plays and comedies. Some dramatize the lives of saints and others collect legends of medieval origin. He also wrote dramas of biblical inspiration.
  • Comedies of Spanish history and legend. Many are set in the Middle Ages and are based on themes taken from chronicles, legends, ballads, and songs. This also includes dramas of unjust power, those that present conflicts between the people and the nobility. Lope’s comedy fulfills the social function of supporting the absolute monarchy against the power of rebellious nobles.
  • Contemporary comedies of love and intrigue. These works are full of intrigues and are set in rural or urban environments of the time, revolving around the theme of love, with go-betweens, girls disguised as men, unexpected guests… They usually have a lighthearted tone and a happy ending.
Characters

In Lope de Vega’s plays, certain character types often recur, defined by how they act, not by their nature, and become role models. Throughout his work, a series of recurring character types appear with the same dramatic function. The most common are:

  • The king, who represents power, restores order, and supports social justice in conflicts.
  • The powerful nobleman, proud of his lineage, is often antagonistic when he abuses his power and causes conflict with his vassals.
  • The knight or gentleman who maintains family order. He appears as a father, brother, or husband who watches over the honor and reputation of the family.
  • The lover and the lady, the young couple in love, are always from the same social group. In general, the gallant is a gentleman or nobleman characterized by his generosity, courage, and attractiveness. The lady is beautiful and, above all, clever: her cunning overcomes the obstacles between her and her lover.
  • The gracioso and the maid. The gracioso accompanies the galán as a servant, friend, or confidant, and is his counterpoint: cowardly and materialistic. His wit brings a conversational tone to the more tense scenes. He often experiences a love story parallel to that of the galán. The lady’s maid is usually also a confidant and acts as a bridge between the lady and the galán, carrying letters and giving information. She often experiences her own love story, parallel to that of the masters, with the galán’s servant.
School

Following the success of Lope’s new comedy, many writers continued his theatrical model, for example, Tirso de Molina.

Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681)

Theater

Calderón reflects a worldview common in the Baroque, pessimistic and conservative: life is vanity, a dream from which one awakens at death, and the world is a theater in which we act out the role assigned to us by the Author-God. His drama is cultured, raising profound issues through meticulously crafted characters, plot, and style. Calderón starts with Lope de Vega’s formula but refines and deepens the central scheme of the play: the development of plot, theme, and characters. He eliminates unnecessary scenes, makes all characters subservient to one main character, reduces the motives or themes of the works to a single issue, and presents a main character who clearly stands out. Calderón’s theater evolves through this process. Thus, while his early works are modeled after Lope, his later theater becomes increasingly focused on ideas and symbols. Calderón de la Barca never criticized the society of his time nor the prevailing social or moral values.

The characteristics of Calderón’s theater are:

  • The language is typical of the Baroque: conceptist and culterano. Overall, it is a refined and minority style, even in works that follow Lope’s model, the language is simpler.
  • The characters in Calderón’s drama are quite elaborate.
  • Stage design also contributed to the success of Calderón’s theater. He introduced innovations that achieved magnificent stagings.
Themes

Calderón’s most characteristic themes are philosophical and theological. But he also intensifies the concepts of kingship and honor, characteristic of Lope de Vega’s theater, and creates wonderful cloak-and-dagger comedies. Calderón’s theater often raises philosophical issues on which he develops logical reasoning. On the subject of honor, Calderón moves within rigid, sometimes inhuman, schemes. This rigid code of honor is displayed in the dramas of honor and jealousy. Based on their themes, Calderón’s works are classified into the following groups:

  • Religious drama.
  • Contemporary comedies of intrigue or cloak-and-dagger. These are the most numerous, although not the best known. They emphasize the skill of plot creation, following the model of Lope de Vega.
  • Mythological drama. In these, the language is more cultured.
  • Dramas of honor and jealousy. Some have historical or legendary bases. In some dramas of jealousy, honor appears with great intensity and reveals Calderón’s tragic sense.
  • Philosophical drama, such as Life is a Dream, undoubtedly his best work. The play presents the conflict between freedom and fate, but also other themes: honor, power, and monarchy.
  • Autos sacramentales. In these works, Calderón best expresses his philosophy and theology, demonstrating his skill in scholastic thought and reasoning.
School

Calderón was the model for other authors who followed the trend of simplifying the plot and deepening themes and characters, such as Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla and Agustín Moreto.