Medieval Lyric Poetry: Popular and Cultured Traditions

Posted on Feb 8, 2025 in Latin

Popular Lyrics: Subject

Lyric poetry, known as the Middle Ages, refers to the set of anonymous poems transmitted orally by the people in the Iberian Peninsula from the 11th century.

Peninsular Events

There are three main events:

  • The jarchas: Written in the Mozarabic dialect, the language of the Christians of al-Ándalus (from the 11th century).
  • The cantigas de amigo: Composed in Galician-Portuguese (13th-14th centuries).
  • The villancicos: Written in Castilian (14th-15th centuries).

Formal and Thematic Characteristics

They have some common features:

  • They ended shortly.
  • They offer a theme of love and are put into the mouth of a woman who complains of the absence or loss of her beloved.

Cultured Lyrical Concept

The cultured medieval lyric, which arose under the courts and palaces of nobility, comprises poems by concrete and educated authors, who early disseminated these written compositions.

Peninsular Manifestations

The first Romance learned poets were troubadours in the French region of Provence. There are three main types:

  • Troubadour poetry in Catalonia (12th century).
  • The cantigas de amor in Galicia (12th-14th centuries).
  • Cancionero poetry in Castile (15th century).

Formal and Thematic Characteristics

Cult poems also have common features:

  • They are compositions more extensive than popular ones.
  • Many of them also address a theme of love, but the self-issuer is generally a man.

Cancionero Poetry and Courtly Love

The most frequent item of 15th-century Castilian poetry is love, in particular, a conception of love called courtly love. It is regulated in a number of conventions:

  • The lover experiences an intense romantic passion that collides with an obstacle (either it is an impossible love, perhaps because it is a married woman, or the lady is not interested and remains indifferent).
  • Love is identified with suffering. This, in turn, increases the feeling of love. Thus, the lover is like a prisoner from whom he neither wants nor can escape.
  • The relationship between the lover and the lady is similar to that between the vassal and lord; it is based on the service, loyalty, and submission of the man to the beloved lady.
  • Although it evokes an erotic encounter, it does not express it explicitly; it insinuates it through words like mercy, reward, glory, or prize, which acquire a sexual meaning.

Jorge Manrique

The most outstanding lyric of the cultured 15th-century Castilian is Verses on the Death of His Father, a work of songs by Jorge Manrique. These constitute an elegy or lament for the death of Rodrigo Manrique, the author’s father. The poem consists of 40 verses, called coplas de pie quebrado, which can be organized into two parts.

Structure and Themes of the Coplas

Part One (Couplets I-XXIV)

It deals with general ideas about the passage of time and death:

  • Tempus Fugit: The awareness of the transience of human existence.
  • Homo Viator: The consideration of earthly life as a journey toward eternal life.
  • The equalizing power of death, which awaits all human beings without distinction of age or condition.
  • Ubi Sunt?: The question about the whereabouts of illustrious characters or material riches to emphasize the structuring ability of time.

Part Two (Couplets XXV-XL)

It focuses on the father figure to include three new themes:

  • The praise of the late Don Rodrigo Manrique.
  • The importance of fame: the living memory retained of the virtues or deeds of the deceased, which can survive death.
  • The serene acceptance of death after a full life.