Baroque Era: Key Figures, Themes, and Theatrical Innovations
The Baroque Era
The Baroque was a cultural movement that developed in Spain and throughout Europe during the seventeenth century. This period, coinciding with the reigns of Philip III, Philip IV, and Charles II, has several characteristic features:
- Political and economic crisis
- Boom of the nobility
- Disenchanted view of life
- Fascination with difficulty
- Taste for contrast
Baroque thought emphasizes the brevity of life and the transience of things, dominated by a negative conception of the world. The idea of death presides: life is just a transition between the cradle and the grave.
Luis de Góngora (1561-1627)
Luis de Góngora wrote love poetry, philosophical and satirical burlesque works, but he is best known for “Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea” and “Solitudes.”
- Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea: This work, consisting of 63 octaves, recounts the love affair between a shepherd and a nymph, who is also pursued by the cyclops Polyphemus.
- Solitudes: Written in silvas, this poem features a young pilgrim who is shipwrecked on an island.
Góngora’s earlier poems defined the Gongoristic style. The argument serves as a pretext to build a world of beauty and verbal senses, a way to escape the miserable reality of the time. His poetic language is extremely difficult, embellishing reality with metaphors and similes, and employing a worshipful, delicious, and colorful lexicon.
Francisco de Quevedo
Quevedo’s works are distinguished into three blocks:
- Moral-philosophical Poetry: Focuses on time and death, before which the author advocates an attitude of stoic serenity.
- Love Poetry: Explores love feelings that endure beyond death.
- Satirical-burlesque Poetry: Criticizes social types, characters, vices, and habits with merciless comedy.
Culteranismo vs. Conceptismo
Culteranismo and Conceptismo are two ways of understanding the same conception of literature:
- Culteranismo: The culterano poet uses many textual resources and figures of speech (e.g., Góngora).
- Conceptismo: The poet works with words, exploring their double meanings (e.g., Quevedo).
The New Comedy (Comedia Nueva)
The comedia nueva is the way of writing theater developed by Lope de Vega, following some new rules:
- Breaks the unity of place, time, and action.
- The play is divided into acts.
- Features typical characters (dama – lady, galán – suitor, servant, maid, parent, king). A funny character is also important.
- The themes are love and honor.
- The language used is colloquial for the characters.
Its characteristics include:
- 3 acts, written in verse, combining tragic and comic elements, developing varied arguments.
Theater in the Baroque Era
The importance of the theatrical phenomenon of the seventeenth century in Spain is not only literary, since it is mainly a very important show in the society of the time, especially in large cities. Theater takes on the features of a business relationship with the Confraternity of Charity, and many people depend on the theater for a living. By mid-century, theater is municipalized.
Lyrics
Culteranismo and Conceptismo dominated lyric poetry. Conceptista writers squeezed out the possibilities of the language based on ideas, while culto writers attended to the imagination and feelings rather than thought itself. These movements are not opposites, despite the personality clashes of their defenders.