Medieval Iberian Lyric Poetry: A Cultural Tapestry
Medieval Iberian Lyric Poetry
Cultured Lyric
Catalan Lyric
Lirica Cultured Catalan: ‘Proveza’ arises in the 13th century and travels to Catalonia. This poetry is collected in nearly 100 ‘cancioneros’. Troubadour poetry is lyrical in nature, with works by known authors expressed in a homogeneous language. These compositions were intended for singing and performed by musicians-singers: minstrels. The troubadours created a difficult subject with rigid laws for fine art.
Subgenres:
- Tired: A composition of a man loving a woman, using the language of feudalism to express feelings.
- Sirventes: A composition used as a way of expressing anger or attack.
Courtly Love:
Love was the art of courtesy and service, understood as the lady being considered superior. It passes through 4 degrees:
- Feñedor (does not dare to express feelings)
- Precador (expresses feelings)
- Connoisseur (is unrequited)
- Drude (becomes her lover)
Galician-Portuguese Lyric
Galician-Portuguese Lyric Cultured: 13th and 14th centuries. ‘Cantigas de amor’ are heirs of the Provencal ‘tired’. The poetic voice is a man addressing a woman.
Manifestations:
- Songs of Love: Love joy turns into sorrow and torment. There is no presence of elements of nature; the environment is urban and palatine.
- Mockery Songbooks: Mocking songs and curse songs.
- Religious Songbooks: ‘Cantigas de Santa Maria’, Alfonso X the Wise.
Learned Arabic and Hebrew Lyric
Poems in stanzas from the 10th and 11th centuries in al-Andalus. Its theme is love, usually homosexual, and its scenario references urban flora and fauna.
Types of Poems:
- Moaxa: Written in classical Arabic, but poets used Hebrew. Hispanic Jews used ‘clásico’.
- Zéjel: Composed in Arabic dialect and lacked ‘jarcha’.
Popular Primitive Lyric
Jarchas
Verses in vulgar Arabic or Hebrew, composed from Andalusian Romance, sometimes used in the 11th century. Some are comparisons, and others are independent. They consist of four lines in rhyme. Its theme is loving, a young lover shares his suffering with his mother, sisters, or friends in an urban setting.
Cantigas de Amigo
Composed in the 13th and 14th centuries in Galician-Portuguese. A young lover expresses her feelings of grief over the death of her beloved. Nature has great importance. The use of parallelism is highlighted.
Carols
Collected in the 15th century and written in Castilian. They are opening lines of a poem of worship. Its theme is love, where a girl complains about her position in a rural environment. The absence of adjectives is frequent, with verbs of motion, predominance of parallelism, and repetition.
Cancionero Poetry
Cultivated in the 15th century by poets educated in Castile. It stems from troubadour poetry and songbooks collected.
Types:
- Cantigas: Shorter poems intended to be sung with a theme of love.
- Decires: Compositions, lyrics, or narratives.
Themes:
- Love Poetry: Its main theme is love and its ideology. Love is presented as an overwhelming force. Its lexicon expresses metaphorically the submissions of the knight to the lady, their relationship with war and religion. In many cases, there is a current of eroticism that can be obscene.
- Moral and Religious Poetry: Criticizing the abuse of groups, condemning the world at large, and having a stoic attitude of strength and dominance. The religious poetry criticizes corruption and relaxation of customs; its aim is to provoke feelings of weight. Includes joys and sorrows, and finally joins the figure of Christ.