Medieval Literature: Poetry, Genres, and Society
Artistic Expression in Literature
Literature creates a fictional world with aesthetic intention. It utilizes language functions to amuse, entertain, and transmit ideas. It holds great value and purpose, evoking emotion and teaching aesthetic delight. The author (issuer) communicates with the reader (recipient), which is of great importance in the context of the work.
Literary Devices
- Form: Verse and prose.
- Hyperbaton: Syntactical stylistic device that alters the order of words (1st level).
- Alliteration: Repetition of phonic sounds (2nd level).
- Metaphor: Semantic device using a word to evoke another (3rd level).
Literary Genres
Dramatic
Representation in public.
Epic
Restrained-action narrative that tells of a character’s deeds.
- In verse: Epic, epic poem.
- In prose: Novels and short stories.
Lyric
Expresses the inner feelings of the author.
- In verse: Ode, elegy, epithalamium, sonnet.
- In prose: Prose poem.
Educational
Testing teaches and disseminates ideas through dialogue.
The Middle Ages
- Mozarabs were Christians in Muslim territory. Mudéjares were Muslims in Christian territory.
- The feudal system was divided into three: oratores (those who pray), bellatores (warriors), and laboratores (those who work).
- Society was theocentric; earthly existence was a transition to eternal life, and death had a liberating sense. The presence of wars necessitated a hero. Religion and war were the medieval ideology.
- Humanism crisis in the 15th century: The medieval church lost influence in favor of the nobility and the bourgeoisie, leading to an interest in humanism. The invention of the printing press favored the spread of new ideas.
- Few people could read and write, so literature was transmitted orally and anonymously.
- Medieval literature was didactic, extolling martial virtues, Christian values, and role models. Examples include epic heroes like El Cid, lives of saints, and the mester de clerecía of Count.
- Themes included fortune, love, and death, as well as disappointment and reflexivity. There was also an enjoyment of life, a sense of instability, and transience, as displayed in La Celestina. The nobility became more cultured, developing literature and poetry in the cancionero style.
Medieval Poetry
Oral Traditional Poetry
The Romance language used prose rather than verse. Verse was easier to memorize and could be accompanied by music. Oral poetry was anonymous, becoming traditional with variations and versions.
Lyric Poetry
The first poems in Romance were love-themed and very simple syntactically and lexically. Examples include jarchas, ballads, cantigas de amigo, and villancicos.
- Jarchas: Short poems from Al-Andalus, mixing Arabic and vulgar Romance, extracted from muwashshah.
- Cantigas de amigo: Poems similar to jarchas from Galicia, with a parallelistic structure.
- Villancicos: Popular in Castile, brief lirica of minor art, consisting of a chorus and gloss.
Epic Poetry
Its origin lies in the taste for narration and glorious deeds, exalting the deeds of a hero. The poems from this period are called epics (gesta = deeds). The Castilian epic has few examples, such as the Cantar de Mio Cid.
Romances
A popular oral genre arising in the 14th century due to the decline of epics. Octosyllabic with assonance and rhyme. They can be considered broken-off fragments of epic poems.
- Style of the Ballads: Essentiality and fragmentary nature, simple syntax and archaic language, references to the listener, heckling.
- The Ballads: Learned poets incorporated romances into songbooks. The Golden Age (16th-17th centuries) saw a collection of all romances. Old ballads were of oral tradition, while new or artistic ballads had noted authors.
Mester de Clerecía
Narrative poems of a teaching and worshipful nature. Written in cuaderna vía (four Alexandrine verses with caesura and rhyme).
- Gonzalo de Berceo: A Castilian poet who lived in San Millán de la Cogolla. His religious works include Miracles of Our Lady, short stories with characters devoted to the Virgin Mary. His style is natural and simple, with cult words of Latin origin.
- Book of Good Love (Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita): Part of the mester de clerecía, it features love stories, love, and deception, mixing religious and secular, serious and burlesque elements. The language is rich, mixing religious and colloquial styles.