Medieval Spanish Literature: Epic Poems, Romances, and Prose
Medieval Spanish Literature
Mester of Minstrelsy
Minstrels were singers, narrators, and actors who entertained people in castles and public spaces. The minstrel craft was learned and practiced like any other occupation, resulting in a school known as the mester (or trade) of minstrelsy.
Mester of Clergy
The clergy also used literature to spread their teachings. This gave rise to the mester de clerecía, or trade of clergymen, who wrote literary works of a religious and moral character.
Epic Poems: The Song of My Cid
Epic poems narrate the exploits of a medieval hero who represents the virtues of a people or community.
Realistic Character
The hero is rooted in historical events and battles, making the story believable.
Informative Function
Epic poems served to inform people about past events and their environment.
Oral Transmission
They were recited in public by minstrels—in squares and castles—to a largely illiterate audience.
Author: Anonymous
Theme and Plot
The Song of My Cid recounts the story of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, who, unjustly banished from the kingdom of Castile by King Alfonso due to envy and slander, seeks to regain his honor. The poem has 3,730 lines and is divided into three parts:
- The Song of Exile
- The Song of the Wedding
- The Song of the Afrenta de Corpes
Romance
The romance is a characteristic of the rich Iberian and Hispano-American literary tradition. Composed using a specific metric combination, it should not be confused with the narrative subgenre of the same name. The romance is characteristic of oral tradition and was popularized in the 15th century when ballads were first collected in writing.
Romances are generally narrative poems with diverse themes reflecting the popular taste of the time and place. They are performed through recitation, chanting, or singing, with interspersed narration.
Old Ballads and Romances
romances procenden again the first of the epic songs and had great success in minstrel alos publico.esto encouraged to create other shots cn and removed from the chronic and leyendasmedievales to imimtacion of aquellos.asi was formed during the fifteenth centuryold romances, oral tradition and girlish. the new romances this CONSTITUTE by invetadas compositions by educated authors in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
La Celestina is the name that has been known since the sixteenth century to the work entitled first comedy of Calisto and then Melibea Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea attributed almost entirely to the bachelor Fernando de Rojas. It is a transitional work between theMiddle Ages and the Renaissance written during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, whose first known edition dates from 1499. Constitutes a basis on which cemented the birth of the modern novel and drama.
Two versions of the work: the Comedy (1499, 16 acts) and the Tragicomedy (1502, 21 acts). The traditional criticism has debated extensively the gender of La Celestina, uncertain whether to classify it asdrama or novel. The current criticism coincides nature of that hybrid and its design work as pure dialogue, perhaps to be recited by a single reader fascia voices of different characters to an audience not very numerous. Their aesthetic and artistic achievements, the characterization of the figures-especially the third, Celestina, whose original background is in Ovid artistic novelty on humanistic comedy, which seems inspired, and the lack of records and followers its height in Western literature, have madeLa Celestina one of the top works of Spanish literature and universal. the intention: the author states the character mortalizador to report having made his tragicomedy as a warning to the insane left enamorao yebar d k amorous passion, and tambn to akey x k are blind greed and avaracia. The Count, in Castilian original ancient book of the Count enxiemplos Lucanor et de Patronio (Book of the examples of the Count, and Patronio) is mostly a book of exempla or moralizing stories written between 1330 and 1335 by PrinceDon Juan Manuel is considered the masterpiece of narrative prose of the fourteenth century Spanish literature.
mean age: theocentrism: God is considered as the center of mundo.es konsecuencia, life is considered an acia way the cielo.la prayer and spiritual meditation akompañar the resistor must umana.-the ideal of the warrior ombre ke is developed further the fakultades Fisika, and the clergy, the Lektüre fakultades religiosas.-the poems are favorite Epik, the Bible, lives of saints and religious themes. Renaissance antropocentismo: the ame komo kreado center mundo.dios to the world for the ombre ke interpretemediante what the disfrute.-razony what the ideal is developed further as kortesano k armonika Oumana .- fakultades all the myths and stories of tradition to the literatures grekolatinas inkorpora romances.