Baroque Literature: A Journey Through the 17th Century

Posted on Oct 5, 2024 in Music

The Cultural Context of the Baroque

A keyword in Baroque culture is “disappointment.” Between the late 16th and late 17th century, the Baroque movement, born from the Renaissance, permeated all cultural and artistic events in Europe and extended to South American countries. It reflects a distrust of the world and a bleak sense of human existence.

Become aware of:

  • The misleading appearance of things
  • The brevity and transience of life and death anxiety

The main characteristics of Baroque art are:

  • Dynamism
  • Theatricality
  • Decorative style and luxury
  • Contrast

Baroque Literature

Artistic and Literary Ideals

  • Artificiality and complexity; the desire to astonish. It despises the ‘flat’, vulgar and praises difficulty and artifice.
  • A literature of contrasts: antithesis and paradox are central figures.
  • Two basic forms, not always separate:
    • Conceptismo: Affects the level of thought. Quevedo was its leader, and Gracián its theorist and definer.
    • Culteranismo: Represented by Góngora, focuses on elaborate expression.

Topics

  • Love
  • The vanities of life
  • The fleeting and inconsistent nature of life
  • The struggle for life
  • Reflective and doctrinal prose
  • Satirical and burlesque literature

The Lyrical Baroque

Two major trends: Conceptismo, with its greatest exponent in Quevedo, and Culteranismo, led by Góngora.

Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627)

Shows two distinct strands in his poetry: a popular realistic style and tone, and the culto style, with hermetic language full of artifice and beauty. Góngora’s work is purely lyrical.

Góngora’s work can be classified into two sections:

  • Minor Poems: letrilla, ballads, and sonnets.
  • Major Poems: Fable of Pyramus and Thisbe, Solitudes, and Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea.

Solitudes, Góngora’s most ambitious work, remained unfinished. It tells the story of a pilgrim in four age groups: youth, adolescence, maturity, and senescence. Góngora only wrote the first and part of the second. It is written in silvas.

Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea consists of 64 octaves. It tells the story of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, who falls in love with the young nymph Galatea, who despises him. This love leads Polyphemus to destroy Acis.

Lope de Vega

His main poetic works are:

  • Rhymes
  • Sacred Rhymes
  • Human and Divine Rhymes of the Lawyer Tomé de Burguillos

His work is classic, balancing form and substance. Some of his works have improvisation.

Quevedo

A mocking poet, critic, and ruthless satirist. His character is marked by contrasts. Works: Life of Buscón (also known as Pablos), Dreams, The Cradle and the Grave, Spanish Parnassus.

His poems show Quevedo’s distrust of man, his almost universal skepticism, a very Baroque attitude.

Thematic division of his poetry:

  • Metaphysical poems
  • Political poems
  • Love poems
  • Burlesque poems

Prose in the Baroque

Two distinct variants:

1. Didactic Prose

Based on doctrinal prose, it is used to propagate political, philosophical, moral, and literary thought of the time. Quevedo and Gracián stand out.

Quevedo’s prose focuses on moral-political issues, highlighting satire, burlesque moral and allegorical works like Time and Fortune with Brains, and moral-philosophical works like The Cradle and the Grave. In these ascetic-inspired works, he displays his pessimism and disappointment towards human existence, marked by the inevitable fate of death.

His works include burlesque short stories on various topics. Among his political works are Policy of God, Government of Christ, and Tyranny of Satan. In Life of Marcus Brutus, Quevedo embodies historical figures.

He also wrote works of literary criticism against culteranismo, such as The Cultured Parrot and The Educated Needle.

Baltasar Gracián, the most pessimistic author of Spanish literature, shows guidelines for man in society in doctrinal treatises such as The Hero, The Discreet, Oracle Manual and Art of Prudence, and The Politician Don Fernando. He also looks critically at society in The Criticón. He composed Acuity and Art of Ingenuity, which discusses conceptista aesthetics.

2. Narrative Prose

Displaced the romance of chivalry, pastoral, and Moorish genres. The picaresque novel dramatically unfolds, counterbalancing the idealized courtesan novel, a type of escapist literature. A new type of novel emerges: the allegorical philosophical novel.

2.1. The Picaresque Novel

Began in the Renaissance with Lazarillo de Tormes, but consolidated during the Baroque. It has a didactic, instructive tendency.

Guzmán de Alfarache follows the structure of Lazarillo, though it varies the psychology and mentality of the central character. With a didactic-moralizing purpose, it is intended to serve as a lesson for its protagonist.

The Baroque theme of the novel is based on the dualism between predestination or determinism and free will.

The Life of Don Pablos Buscón, a youthful work by Quevedo, is an example of the picaresque. The novel has a simple plot, intended to degrade, revealing the author’s complacency in surrendering to the recreational game of observing a world of puppets and human caricatures, taking a hostile attitude towards the reality of the world.

2.2. Books of Chivalry

Narrative genre part of the medieval epic tradition, exalting European values. The hero is more refined, adventurous, and individualistic than the hero of medieval epic poetry.

Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes deserves special mention.

  • Argument and Structure: A fairly simple, well-structured story: Don Quixote, driven mad by reading chivalric novels, believes he is a knight and sets out three times from his village in search of adventure, encountering authentic nonsense until he returns home, sick and disillusioned. The basic scheme is: departure from the village, a series of adventures, return to the village.
  • Intent and Meaning: The intention is to parody the romances of chivalry. The final lesson is to understand that everyone is the product of their actions.
  • The Narrator: A fictional narrator and author.
  • The Characters: Don Quixote is the cultured man. Sancho is the natural man, primitive, simple, but full of practical wisdom. The characters belong to the real world (realism).
  • Language and Style: Archaic language and chivalric speaking style (Don Quixote) and natural and popular speech (Sancho’s proverbs).
2.3. “Byzantine” Books

Tales of love and adventure in which a couple suffers the misfortune of separation, each enduring trials, and always ending happily with the reunion of lovers.

One of the most important Byzantine novels is The Persiles and Segismunda by Miguel de Cervantes.

2.4. Pastoral Books

A kind of bucolic literature. It began in 1504 with L’Arcadia and includes The Galatea. In the ideology of pastoral novels, love, beauty, and truth are the same, but desire always accompanies the first. Love is spiritual.

2.5. The Short Story and the Novel

The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes:

  • Novels of the “first type”: Imitation of the Italian model, without much psychological depth, where the fantastic and entertainment are important: The Liberal Lover, The Two Damsels, Lady Cornelia.
  • Transition Novels: Cervantes begins to delve into the psychological study of the characters: The Gypsy Girl, The Spanish English Lady, The Power of Blood, The Jealous Extremaduran, The Illustrious Serving Wench, The Deceitful Marriage.
  • Novels of fullness: Cervantes becomes a privileged spectator and analyst of social life: Rinconete and Cortadillo, The Glass Graduate, and The Dialogue of the Dogs.

María de Zayas, author of romantic novels and romantic disappointment pieces, uses the formula of Boccaccio’s Decameron.

Marcia Leonarda are novels by Lope de Vega.

2.6. The Allegorical Philosophical Novel

Represented by Baltasar Gracián’s El Criticón. The author uses allegory for his vision of life, man, and the world. The spirit of criticism is present throughout the novel.

The first part corresponds to the spring of childhood and youth, the second to the summer of adulthood, and the third to the winter of old age.

Critilo represents reason; Andrenio is the natural man; Felisinda, happiness; Honora (Honor); Hipocrinda (hypocrisy); Sofisbella (“sophia,” wisdom); Vejecia (old age); Artemia (Art), and so on.

Theater in the Baroque

During the 17th century, theater experienced a great boom in Europe: Lope de Vega, Tirso de Molina, and Calderón de la Barca in Spain; Molière, Corneille, and Racine in France; William Shakespeare in England.

The theater model implemented by Lope de Vega has the following features:

1. Dramatic Text

  • Divided into three acts, each consisting of scenes with their own time and space.
  • Use of verse as theatrical text, adapting the metrics of the verse to the dramatic situation.
  • Rejection of the three unities (time, place, and action).
  • Mix of comic and tragic.
  • Stereotypical characters:
    • The lover seeks the love of the lady whose honor is protected by the parent, brother, or husband.
    • The father is a gentleman, but could also be a villain (peasant).
    • The funny character presents the comical aspects.
    • The servant of the leading man and the maid live a parallel love action.
    • The powerful (master or noble) represents evil.
    • The king is in charge of administering justice.
    • The villain or peasant represents traditional values and generally defends honor against the powerful.
  • National themes:
    • Defense of honor.
    • Love.
    • The Catholic religion, or Christian morality.
  • Incorporates dances and songs (letrillas).

2. Theatrical Representation

Three types: popular theater in corrales de comedias, court theater in royal palaces, and religious drama during the feast of Corpus Christi, with performances of mystery plays. Representations had a ritual character.

A. Popular Theater: Corrales de Comedias

Initially performed in gardens or squares. After 1560, theater companies were established in major cities of Spain. Stages were constructed outdoors first, as in the Corral de la Pacheca. Then arose in Madrid, El Corral de la Cruz and the Corral del Príncipe.

Corrales were interior courtyards of a block of houses, on one side of which was mounted the platform or stage. Wooden benches (lunetas) were placed in the yard, occupied by men. In the back, men stood (the musketeers). On the upper floors was the cazuela, where women were located. The windows and balconies of the side walls and attics were the rooms rented by noble and wealthy families. On the sides, below the apartments, were the stands.

There were other areas such as dressing rooms and refreshment rooms (alojera). The theatrical season normally ran from Easter until the following year’s Carnival. The show consisted of several parts:

  • The loa, in verse, in which the author reveals the “subject.”
  • First act of the play.
  • Entremés, a very short humorous piece.
  • Second act of the play.
  • A dance with a sung text and music.
  • Third act of the play.
  • A comic masquerade in verse after the play concluded.

Playwrights sold their works to authors (directors or managers) of theater companies. There was no copyright, and plays were often stolen or copied, or pirated by memoriones, people who could memorize a work after hearing it. So playwrights began to publish their works in partes (12 plays each).

B. Court or Palatine Theater

Court theater was characterized by visual and aural spectacle, very expensive, consistent with the themes and beautifying the tension of the spoken theater.

C. Religious Theater: Autos Sacramentales

Auto sacramental is a one-act play, with allegorical characters, developing a religious theme with didactic intention and ending with the celebration of the Eucharist.

Lope de Vega (1562-1635)

His plays draw their charm from the action and use arguments from ancient legends and history.

  • Religious plays: The Royal Imposter, Diana’s Hunt, The Works of Jacob, The Rustic Heaven, The Beautiful Esther, or The Birth of Christ.
  • Mythological plays: Women Without Men, The Steadfast Husband, The Cretan Labyrinth, or Love for Love.
  • Historical plays: The Last Spaniard and the Retting of the Goth, The Bastard Mudarra, The Best Mayor, the King, The Star of Seville, Fuenteovejuna, Peribáñez and the Commander of Ocaña (among his best works).
  • Love comedies in various settings (folkloric, popular, city, palace): The Dog in the Manger, The Villain in His Corner, The Stupid Lady, The Daintiness of Belisa, The Girl with the Pitcher, and Steel in Madrid.

Tirso de Molina (1579-1648)

Continuing the Lopean dramatic formula, he has keen powers of observation of human and political reality, and his ironic, sometimes satirical treatment, marks his creation. He also has a solid intellectual and theological training. He excels especially in the characterization of female characters, as seen in Prudence in Women.

  • Comedies: Don Gil of the Green Breeches, The Pious Marta, Shame in the Palace.
  • Dramas:
    • The Trickster of Seville and the Stone Guest: the first theatrical appearance of the Don Juan myth. Juan Tenorio, mocker of women and murderer of Don Gonzalo of Ulloa, receives eternal punishment for his wickedness.
    • The Condemned for Lack of Faith is a religious drama where Paulo is a bandit and loses his soul, while Enrico, repenting at the last minute, is saved.

Calderón de la Barca

His first known play is Love, Honor and Power. These are three key themes in Calderonian theater, to which a fourth should be added: the religious theme, present in many of his works, and which led to the perfection of morality plays.

  • Love: The Phantom Lady, The Feigned Astrologer, House with Two Doors, Bad to Guard, The Hidden and the Veiled, Don’t Trifle with Love. Love conquers all obstacles and dangers to become the joyful triumph of the wedding or weddings that are announced in the outcome.
  • Palace comedies: Characterized by distant and unreal settings. The most outstanding are: Keep Your Own Secret, The Phantom Lover, The Scarf and the Flower, Man, Cries and Commands.
  • Themes of power, religion, and honor: Dramas like The Constant Prince, Absalom’s Hair, The Schism of England, The Daughter of the Air, The Physician of His Honor, The Mayor of Zalamea, and Life is a Dream.
  • Autos Sacramentales: Calderón dramatizes abstract concepts of Catholic theology, turning them into characters, making them real for the audience. The Great Theater of the World and Life is a Dream are examples.