Golden Age Spanish Literature: Baroque Poetry and Theater
Spanish Golden Age Literature
Baroque Poetry
Luis de Góngora
Creator of culterano poetry: refined, cultured, brilliant, and complex. He invented a metaphorical language that departs from common language, presenting a transformed world. He also wrote mocking poems and traditional forms like romances and letrillas.
Work
Góngora invented a brilliant, elitist poetic language. His poetry purports to represent reality but transforms it, through metaphor, into a new world of beauty. His sonnets showcase learned poetry, a trend intensified after 1609. His great poems, “The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea” and “Solitudes,” evoked strong reactions. This period marks the rise of his culteranismo style.
Features
- Intensification of lexical cultism
- Accumulation of metaphors
- Abundance of mythological allusions
- Conceptista wordplay
Francisco de Quevedo
Quevedo prolifically wrote poetry and prose in almost all forms and genres. He combined cultured and popular, serious and mocking tones, with a typical conceptista contrast, reflecting the Baroque style. His lyrical themes delve into love, death, Spain’s decline, disappointment, and life’s transience.
Poetry
Quevedo’s works were posthumously published; his compositions circulated in manuscripts, with romances and letrillas transmitted as songs. Satirical poems, passed hand-to-hand anonymously, stand out.
Styles in Poetry
- Serious Poetry: Thoughtful poems express feelings or ideas in a profound tone. This includes metaphysical, moral, religious, and amorous poems. Ascetic compositions reflect on life, death, and time, emphasizing life’s transience.
- Poetry as Wit: Satirical poems emphasize linguistic experimentation and a critical view of society, employing burlesque and hyperbole.
Style
- Special use of language and exploration of new expressive resources.
- Poetry tends towards surprising concepts and associations.
Typical Features
- Extremely original metaphors
- Neologisms
- Special use of grammatical categories
- Abundant conceptista puns
Baroque Theater (17th Century)
Theater matured and gained popularity with playwrights like Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca. Popular theater coexisted with religious and courtly drama.
Religious Drama
Manifested through sacramental plays with allegorical characters.
Courtly Theater
Performed in palace halls, known for scenic innovations.
Popular Theater
Achieved great success with authors like Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca. It was the most popular entertainment of the time.
The Theater of Lope de Vega
At the end of the 16th century, a simpler theater emerged, molded to public taste and emphasizing agility (New Comedy).
New Comedy
Introduced numerous innovations, breaking with classical rules:
- Rejection of the Three Unities: Lope disregarded the unities of time, place, and action, creating dynamic scenes and extended timelines.
- Three Acts: Plays were presented in three acts: exposition, climax, and resolution.
- Mix of Tragic and Comic: Different tones and environments were combined.
- Decorum: Matching character type with speech style.
- The Gracioso: A funny character evolving from Lope de Rueda’s fool.
- Lyrical Elements: Songs, dances, and spectacle.
- Variety of Verse: Lope’s plays were written entirely in verse.
Themes
Comedies of Spanish history and legend, including conflicts between the people and nobility.
Characters
Characters are identified by their actions or social status: the king, the powerful nobleman, the gentleman, the gallant, the lady, and her maid.
The Theater of Calderón de la Barca
Calderón presented a pessimistic and conservative worldview: life is vanity, a dream ending in death, and the world is a stage. His cultured theater explored deep issues through symbolic characters and careful plot and style.
Features
- Baroque Language: Concepts, culterano style.
- Character Development: Elaborate characters with symbolic dimensions.
- Set Design: Spectacular innovations.
Themes
- Religious dramas
- Comedies
- Swashbuckling plays
- Mythological dramas
- Dramas of honor and jealousy
- Philosophical dramas
- Mystery plays