Baroque Prose in 17th Century Spain
Baroque Prose
2. Lope de Vega
In addition to his very extensive and lyrical drama, Lope also left an important production in prose fiction: The Arcadia, a pastoral novel, The Pilgrim in his Homeland, a Byzantine novel, and Marcia Leonarda, four stories in which the model mimics the Exemplary Novels of Cervantes. La Dorotea, his best novel, follows the style of La Celestina.
3. The Picaresque Novel: Mateo Alemán
Half a century separates Lazarillo de Tormes, the first manifestation of the picaresque genre, from Guzmán de Alfarache, by Mateo Alemán.
In this atmosphere of crisis and disappointment, the great boom of the picaresque novel was to be produced.
Mateo Alemán published Guzmán de Alfarache in two parts: the first in 1599, and the second in 1604. It is a comprehensive account in autobiographical form, where the rogue Guzmán recounts his infamous origin and years of life, during which, in order to escape from hunger and misery, he dedicates himself to theft, enlists as a soldier, begs, comes to serve several masters, and goes through jail. After he marries the daughter of a swindler, is widowed, and experiences religious life, he marries again, is abandoned by his wife, returns to robbery, is condemned to the galleys, and eventually gains his freedom. His wanderings take him to various urban settings in Spain and Italy.
The protagonist alternates the narrative of his misfortunes with moral reflections that correspond to the spirit of the time. Power, money, cronyism, greed, selfishness, and cowardice become targets against which bitter satire points.
Sobriety, attention to detail, and realism distinguish the language and style of Mateo Alemán. Guzmán de Alfarache sets the final model of the picaresque novel.
4. Francisco de Quevedo
Quevedo’s works are classified into five categories:
- Festive Works: Formed by all the short works of a comic character that he wrote in his youth, such as The Charter of a Cuckold to Another.
- Moral-Satirical Works: Using the old literary procedure of dreams, Quevedo directs his satire against all sectors of a decadent society, whose vices and defects he censures in one of his most important works: Dreams.
- Narrative Works: The History of the Life of Buscón, Called Don Pablos, better known by the title of El Buscón, is a picaresque novel in which Quevedo, as an autobiographer, tells the life of the rogue Pablos.
Quevedo draws in this novel a pessimistic, cruel, and inhuman picture of life, through successive failures that force the rogue to try to improve his condition after setting aside morality.
Many of the numerous characters in the novel are treated with grotesque features, reflecting the moral decadence of an era fiercely criticized by the author.
- Doctrinal Prose Works of Moral and Political Content: The first, with an ascetic tone, poses a reflection on the meaning of life and death, such as The Cradle and the Grave. Political works reflect the deep concern of Quevedo for the decay of the Spanish Empire and his patriotic fervor and nostalgia for a heroic past.
- Literary Criticism: Short extension works whose common denominator is mockery of Góngora’s style. Navigational Compass highlights the culteranismo.
4.1 The Influence of Quevedo
The influence of Quevedo’s language and expressionist style is noticeably felt in the aesthetics of the absurdity of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, the crudeness of Camilo José Cela, and the writing of Francisco Umbral.
5. Baltasar Gracián
For the literary quality of his work and the depth of his thought, Gracián is one of the most representative prose writers of 17th century Spain. As a man immersed in the culture of the Baroque, with a pessimistic view of human nature, he sees life as a constant struggle. He requires a straight path based on knowledge, discipline, prudence, and discretion. The exaltation of these virtues consecrates his early works, a series of treatises that are archetypal standards for perfection and knowledge to guide life: The Hero, The Statesman, and The Discreet.
The work that best reflects Gracián’s thinking is The Critic, an allegorical novel divided into three parts, published under the pseudonym Lorenzo García Morlanes. The different stages of human life are presented in the allegorical form of the seasons, a literary topic taken from Petrarchan lyric. The characters and fictional space also receive an allegorical treatment.
The many and varied episodes experienced by the protagonists serve as an example of Gracián’s narrative and his desolate, ascetic vision of the world.
The usual resources of conceptismo, and even culteranismo, are present in Gracián’s intellectual prose, characterized in its rigor and density by the brevity of the sentence, the lexical choice, and the abundance of antithesis, puns, and ellipses.
The success of Gracian’s works among foreign readers was huge, judging by the numerous translations of his works.