Baroque Literature: Characteristics, Themes, and Key Authors
Baroque Literature
The Baroque period is marked by contrasts and is one of the most splendid artistic periods in Spanish history. The main difference from Renaissance literature lies in the approach to issues and the artificial use of literary devices. The theme presents a bitter and pessimistic vision. The style, unlike the harmony of Renaissance texts, becomes more artificial and complicated to impress the reader with formal and content. Depending on which of these has more weight, two different literary trends emerge:
Culteranismo
Shows a clear preference for formal beauty. It is characterized by the intensive use of literary devices.
Conceptismo
The author is primarily concerned with the text’s content and the depth of their ideas.
The Theatre in the Baroque
Drama reached its peak in the Baroque, becoming a mass spectacle for all social classes. Due to its popularity, fixed areas for performances began to proliferate in cities.
Characteristics of Baroque Lyric Poetry
In the seventeenth century, poets pursued literary genius, creating complex texts to evoke admiration. This lyrical genius manifested in two trends: a cultured style, characterized by complicated work requiring intellectual effort from the reader, emphasizing culteranismo and conceptismo; and a popular style, characterized by simplicity and formal clarity.
Themes
Lyric poetry presents, among others, the following topics:
Love: Experiences show the misleading contrast between happiness and pain that love brings.
Disappointment and Pessimism: A view of life as moral or philosophical issues.
Satire: Poets reflect the social and political reality of the moment from a critical and burlesque perspective.
Mythology: Compositions recreate scenes from the mythological world of Greco-Roman antiquity.
Culteranismo
A literary movement based on the use of formal devices, with Luis de Góngora as its most representative figure.
Culteranismo Traits:
- Frequent allusions to classical mythology.
- Obscure language, far removed from reality, using learned words, hyperbaton, and metaphors.
- Resources directed to the senses: adjectives highlighting color and touch.
Góngora’s poetic output consists of:
- Popular poems: Verses composed in minor art, traditionally attributed to a stage of youth, widely distributed due to their apparent formal simplicity.
- Cult poems: Including sonnets, The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea, and The Solitudes.
Conceptismo
The poet’s wit is manifested in the content, i.e., the meaning and double meaning of words. The most commonly used literary devices are:
- Antithesis: Showing conflicting ideas.
- Dilogy or Puns: Words used in more than one sense.
- Neologisms: New words are created.
- Hyperbole: Qualities are exaggerated.
Quevedo’s poems can be classified into three groups according to theme:
- Poems of philosophical and moral issues, such as the transience of life, the inevitability of time, human destiny, the fear of death, and the decline of Spain.
- Satirical burlesque poems that mock professions and customs of his time.
- Love poems, often portraying idealized love as a futile hope and a contradictory feeling.
The Popular Lyric
Includes popular carols and letrillas, characterized by clarity of expression and simplicity in language.
Lope de Vega
Cultivated both educated and popular poetry, reflecting his life experiences. Lope collected traditional Castilian poetry circulating among the people, recreated it, and returned it enriched. The forms used were the romance, carol, and streak.