17th Century Spanish Literature: Baroque Period

Posted on Mar 4, 2025 in Modern Philology. English

17th Century Literature: The Baroque

Historical and Social Context

The 17th century was a historic moment of national crisis in Spain:

  • Economic Crisis: Wealth from the New World was not adequately invested, leading to increased poverty.
  • Spanish Decadence: The country faced constant war and the expulsion of Jews and Moors.
  • Emigration to America: Some areas were depopulated due to emigration.

Definition and Major Characteristics

There is a great contrast between the 16th and 17th centuries. The optimism of the Renaissance disappeared, replaced by an ironic approach, even sarcasm. Traditional metrical forms, especially ballads, sonnets, and letrillas, were still cultivated.

Key characteristics and topics include:

  • Epic, romantic, and mythological themes.
  • Religious, moral, and political themes.
  • Picaresque and satirical social commentary or expressions of disappointment.
  • National, historical, or legendary themes.

Writers sought originality, creative individuality, and surprising rhetoric:

  • Innovative style.
  • Ingenuity, using verbal resources like ellipsis, antitheses, and paradoxes.
  • Exaggeration and distortion.

There was a loss of faith in humanity, disappointment, and a devaluation of the world.

Themes and Forms of Baroque Lyric Poetry

Baroque lyric poetry exhibits sharp contrasts in themes, tones, and styles. The sonnet and romance reached great perfection, as did the décima and silva.

Common themes included:

  • Love: The view of women shifted from angelic beings of nature to a more moralistic view, sometimes becoming an object of beauty in mythology, or a subject of humor and sarcasm.
  • Other Topics: Time and its fleeting nature, dreams, disappointment, and death.

Trends

  • Popular Baroque Poetry: Poems in this style included carols, letrillas from the traditional lyric, and romances.
  • Cultured Lyric Poetry: Two main trends emerged:
    • Conceptismo (most representative poet: Francisco de Quevedo)
    • Culteranismo (leader: Luis de Góngora)

Conceptismo

  • Focused on the concept.
  • Used figures of speech to express relationships or contrasts between objects.
  • Created word games to multiply meanings.
  • Figures of speech.
  • More prevalent in prose, less so in poetry.

Culteranismo

  • Incorporated cultured vocabulary (cultismos).
  • More prevalent in poetry than in prose.
  • Achieved great musicality.
  • Abundant use of rhetorical figures and mythological allusions.
  • Pursued beauty.

Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645): Conceptismo

Moral Poetry: Poems of a moralizing, reflective, existential, philosophical, metaphysical, and religious nature. They reflect existential pessimism. Subjects include time, the brevity of life, and the constant threat of death. His attitude was disappointed, bitter, and satirical.

Love Poetry: Sings of love and considers woman an unattainable ideal.

Satirical and Burlesque Poetry: His best-known and most popular work. He mocked everything, especially in his letrillas, famous for attacks on money, wealth, marriage, and characters of the time.

Political Poetry: A less extensive body of work than his other poetry. He reflects on Spain and censors corruption. He also criticized court figures, including the king.

Luis de Góngora (1561-1627): Culteranismo

Góngora directed the reader’s admiration towards intelligence, rarely touching on feelings. His work can be divided into two types of poetry:

Poetry Near the Traditional Lyric (1st Stage):

  • Romances: Dealt with pastoral, lyrical, and Moorish themes.
  • Letrillas: Composed in minor art verses with a refrain after each stanza.

Learned Poetry (2nd Stage):

  • Sonnets: Composed on various subjects: love, circumstances, and satire.
  • Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea: A long poem inspired by a mythological theme.
  • The Solitudes: An unfinished work that was the culmination of the culto style.

Lope de Vega (1562-1635)

Brief Biography: His poetry included:

  • Popular Style: Romances, seguidillas, carols, letrillas.
  • Cultured Style: Sonnets, estancias, triplets.

Classification of his poetry by theme:

  • Lyric Poetry: Synthesis of the cultured tradition of songbooks and the Renaissance.
  • Epic Poetry: A genre highly cultivated.
  • Satirical and Burlesque Poetry: Combines aspects of both conceptismo and culteranismo.