Golden Age Spanish Literature: Lope, Tirso, Calderón, Quevedo, and Góngora
Golden Age Spanish Literature
Lope de Vega
In addition to his other literary contributions, Lope de Vega achieved immense fame through his dramatic works. His extensive theatrical repertoire includes 42 morality plays and over 300 comedies. His most outstanding works can be categorized into two groups:
- Comedies on National Issues: Fuenteovejuna, Peribáñez y el Comendador de Ocaña
- Comedies on Invented Themes: Love is the most cultivated theme, including the cloak and dagger comedies like La dama boba and El perro del hortelano.
His production also covers religious, mythological, pastoral, foreign history, and other themes.
Style
Lope de Vega’s style is characterized by naturalness and spontaneity. He skillfully employed formal procedures with simplicity, avoiding unnecessary affectation or artifice. One of his greatest strengths is the integration of popular and cultured elements, such as traditional verses (ballads, letrillas, songs) within a formal structure.
Fuenteovejuna
Fuenteovejuna, one of Lope’s best works, is based on true events set during the reign of the Catholic Monarchs. The drama depicts a conflict between the town of Fuenteovejuna (Córdoba) and its tyrannical governor.
Tirso de Molina
Work
Tirso de Molina authored around 80 plays, most notably El burlador de Sevilla and El condenado por desconfiado.
Style
While following the Lopean model, Tirso’s theater possesses distinct characteristics:
- Character Building: His profound understanding of the human soul, particularly women, allows him to create complex and memorable characters.
- Comic Element: His critical and sarcastic humor imbues his works with a strong satirical tone, especially evident in secondary characters.
- Contrast: His style is also marked by the contrast between long poetic speeches and witty jokes.
El burlador de Sevilla
The action begins in Naples, where Don Juan deceives the Duchess Isabela through trickery.
Calderón de la Barca
During the 17th century, Spanish national comedy reached its peak with Calderón de la Barca.
Work
His work is typically divided into two stages:
- First Stage (from 1621): Comedies of intrigue and swashbuckling, such as La dama duende and Casa con dos puertas, mala es de guardar.
- Second Stage (1630-1640): He became a classic of his time, reaching maturity as a playwright. This period includes biblical tragedies (Los cabellos de Absalón), honor plays (El alcalde de Zalamea), and historical dramas (El tuzaní de la Alpujarra). His greatest work, La vida es sueño, also belongs to this stage.
Style
Calderón’s style builds upon the dramatic tradition established by Lope de Vega. His distinctive characteristics include:
- Order and Structure: Precision and clarity in the presentation and resolution of conflicts.
- Stylization of Language: Elevated and poetic language.
- Intensification of Linguistic and Scenic Resources: Heightened dramatic effects.
La vida es sueño (1635)
Undoubtedly Calderón’s most famous comedy and one of the greatest plays in world literature.
The Baroque in Poetry
The Golden Age witnessed a thematic renewal and increasing formal complexity, pushing the expressive possibilities of language to its limits. Three main trends emerged:
1. Conceptismo
This quintessential Baroque style is most clearly exemplified by Quevedo. The classical balance between expression and content is disrupted in favor of the latter. Conceptismo encompasses a multitude of stylistic devices, including comparisons, allegories, metaphors, and their derivatives. Humorous effects often predominate.
Quevedo’s Lyric Poetry
Quevedo appears as a ruthless, mocking poet and critic. However, this is only one facet of his complex personality. He was deeply concerned with the problems of his time. His character is marked by contrasts: capable of both atrocious mockery and profound reflection.
His poetry is among the densest and most surprising of the 17th century. It encompasses political, philosophical, romantic, and burlesque themes. It reflects his distrust of humanity and a Baroque worldview.
2. Culteranismo
This style, characteristic of Góngora and his followers, has traditionally been seen as opposed to conceptismo. Culteranismo represents an evolution of conceptismo, incorporating extreme Latinism in syntax, lexicon, and semantics, along with daring metaphors. The classical balance is shifted towards the senses.
Luis de Góngora
Góngora’s work is exclusively lyrical, including:
- Minor Poems: Letrillas, ballads, sonnets.
- Longer Poems: Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe, Panegírico al Duque de Lerma, Soledades, Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea.
He explores themes such as carpe diem, decrepitude, old age, and the passage of time.
Style
Two periods are discernible in his work:
- First Period: Marianist religious themes, short meters, letrillas, romances, and popular songs.
- Second Period: Characterized by artificiality and difficulty, representing the highest level of culteranismo and considered the peak of his lyrical and Baroque poetry.
Transcendence
Góngora’s innovative poetry has influenced various literary movements, including Pure Poetry and the Generation of ’27.
3. Balance between Expression and Content
The Baroque style of these poets manifests in their pessimism, disillusionment with reality, or extreme vitalism.
Lope de Vega’s Poetry
Considered one of the finest Spanish writers, Lope de Vega’s lyrical work is among the best of the 17th century. He wrote letrillas, sonnets, and ballads on popular, religious, moralizing, burlesque, or love themes.
Style
Lope achieved a balance between form and content, poeticizing the events of his life, both romantic and religious.