Conceptism and Culteranismo in Baroque Literature
Conceptism
Conceptism is situated in a compromise between the desire to express ideas and concepts and verbal ingenuity (using a wide variety of words).
Conceptism does not develop ideas but brings out the contact or collision between the words.
This language was used by few people, and it was only intended to be understood by the educated reader.
They preferred depth of thought, the pun, antithesis, or paradox.
The style used was terse (brief, concise) and choppy. It actually corresponds to didactic or moral literature.
Representatives of Conceptism are Francisco de Quevedo and Baltasar Gracian.
Culteranismo
Introduction
Culteranismo and Conceptism are, in the world of literature, the two poles that summarize the Baroque tendencies.
Culteranismo is a word field (meaning – a field of ideas). It is expressed in both prose and poetry.
Culteranismo
Culteranismo uses the word not to describe objects directly or reasons for poetry but for its own sound or particularly evocative qualities.
That is, the meaning of the poem is less important than the sensory world created by words. It strives for colorful and well-written poetry. To achieve this, it uses:
- Metaphors
- Hyperbaton
Cult-Language: Here, the quality of sound and its own musicality are emphasized. It also aims to create a climate of hardship and surprise for the reader. For this, proparoxytone words are used. In their time, words such as “teenager” were considered educated, but today they are household words.
The Lyrics of Culteranismo
Luis de Góngora y Argote
His life:
- Born in Córdoba.
- Studied in Salamanca.
- Upon returning to Córdoba, he enjoyed an ecclesiastical benefice in the city’s cathedral.
- He liked sharp controversy and ridicule.
- Made frequent trips to different Spanish cities.
- He was appointed chaplain to Philip III in Madrid.
- Returned to Cordova, where he died of a stroke.
Góngora’s poetry now has the place it deserves.
Romanticism
Romanticism was also a movement and an aesthetic tendency, a new way of seeing the world, or a revolutionary political stance.
The romantics broke with the mold that says that “reason overcomes feeling.”
The romantics attempted to find expressiveness in language.
Features:
- Individualism: The author is the center of the world. The “I” predominates.
- Total freedom: The author writes according to their taste. No rules can stop them.
- Sentimentality and imagination: Imagination can surpass reality, and feeling takes the place of reason.
- Love of nature: Nature is described with feeling and not with reason.
- Escape from reality: As imagination exceeds reality, the romantic escapes from society to go to their own world.
Baroque: A cultural and artistic movement that developed during the 17th century, coinciding with a period of economic, political, and social crisis. At the beginning of the 17th century, Spain was still the leading power in Europe. By the mid-century, it culminated in the loss of Spanish hegemony. The expulsion of Jews and Moors, with the resulting loss of capital and labor, left the country exhausted. In 17th-century Spain, people began to realize the truth: the glorious deeds of the recent past contrasted with the poor present they were living in.
- Renaissance: Political glory of Spain, the Spanish feel self-confident, have an optimistic view of life, man is the center of the universe, have enthusiasm for the natural and spontaneous, the prevailing serenity, balance, and elegance.
- Baroque: Decay, distrust, disappointment, pessimism, lack of appreciation of the human, taste for the elaborate, violent contrasts, dynamism, complication.