Medieval to Baroque Poetry and Prose: A Literary Journey
Medieval Poetry
The Middle Ages and Lyric Poetry
Medieval poetry reflects the confluence of languages and cultures. We distinguish between:
- Cultured-Medieval Lyric: Derived from Provençal troubadour poetry.
- Cans: Male emitter, female recipient; love as a service with four stages.
- Sirvent: Used for expression, repression, or personal attack.
- Gallego-Portuguese Love Songs (13th-14th centuries): Influence of Provençal poetry, varied metrics, songbooks, jokes, and satire.
- Cantigas Curse: Direct attacks on social groups.
- Songs of Santa Maria (Alfonso X the Wise): 420 cantigas, Marian and Christological themes, miracle narratives.
- Cultured Arabic and Hebrew Lyric:
- Muwashshah: Founded in 900, love themes, Arabic or Hebrew, prelude with a poemilla ending in a jarcha.
- Popular Lyric: Anonymous, oral tradition, linked to religion.
- Jarcha: Final part of the muwashshah, love theme, simplicity.
- Cantigas de Amigo: Female speaker expresses sentiments, nature is important, popular language, parallelism.
- Villancicos: Short poems, maiden’s lament, rural setting, symbolic value.
Jorge Manrique’s Poetry
Verses on the Death of His Father: Elegiac poem for Don Rodrigo Manrique. Structure: 40 stanzas, general part (life, death, ubi sunt?) and epicede (exaltation of the father). Themes: death, fame, eternal life. Metric: coplas manriqueñas (8A 8B 4C 4C 8A 8B 8D 8E 8D 4F 4F).
Renaissance Lyric
Renaissance Lyric Poetry
Influence of Petrarch and Greco-Latin forms. Cultural aspects: Metric: hendecasyllables, lira, stay, sonnet, Sapphic stanza, chained triplets. Literary resources: metaphors, hyperbaton, epithets. Themes: Love (contradictory, painful), nature (bucolic and idealized landscapes), locus amoenus, Greco-Latin themes. Stages:
- First half-century: Romances and traditional poems, Petrarchan and classical influence (Garcilaso de la Vega).
- Second step: Religious poetry (ascetic purification), moral poetry (Fray Luis de León), mystic union with God (Saint John of the Cross).
Baroque Poetry
Presents a variety of topics, innovations, and intensified Renaissance resources. Themes: love, philosophical, moral, religious, and burlesque. Formal aspects: Metric: minor art and Italianate verses (importance of silva). Style: extreme sharpness, concepto (metaphor, comparison), contrast, complexity, cultism. Authors:
- Góngora: (Obra Poética): Minor art (romances, letrillas), major sonnets. Style: Abundant mythological references, cultured lexicon, accumulation of resources.
- Lope de Vega: Ballads, Petrarchan poetry, religious themes. Style: Influence of Renaissance features, mimics Góngora’s expressive simplicity.
- Quevedo: Love poetry, metaphysics, moral transience of life, burlesque and satirical poems. Style: Cultism, admonitory tone, hyperbolae, degrading metaphors, dilogy, lexical creation, parody.
Baroque Prose
- Prose Narrative: Pastoral novel, picaresque novel (Guzmán de Alfarache by Mateo Alemán), courtly novel (El Buscón by Quevedo, autobiographical).
- Didactic Prose: Quevedo (satirical and moral works), Baltasar Gracián (critical, pessimistic view, wit and ingenuity, Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia).
Medieval Narrative (Verse)
Epic Poetry
Narrates heroic deeds, used to encourage warriors, technical complexity.
El Cantar de Mio Cid
Based on the last years of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar (El Cid), composed in the 12th century. Themes: Hero’s restraint, prudence, balance, honor (public and private). Structure: Irregular verses (10-20 syllables), divided by a caesura, assonance rhyme, grouped in tiradas. Three main parts: Song of Exile, Song of the Weddings, Song of Corpes. Omniscient narrator.
Mester de Clerecía
Narrative texts with religious or heroic didactic intention, inspired by Latin sources, written in cuaderna vía, anonymous works (Libro de Alexandre, Apolonio, Poema de Fernán González).
Gonzalo de Berceo
A poet who proclaims his authorship, works aimed to educate the lower clergy (Life of San Millán de la Cogolla, Marian works (Miracles of Our Lady), doctrinal works (The Sacrifice of the Mass)). Style: Derivations, metaphors, learned words, anaphora.
Miracles of Our Lady
Marian work, exaltation of power. Structure: Allegorical introduction and miracles. The Virgin Mary is portrayed as authoritarian and strong, written in chronological order.
Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita
The Book of Good Love
Autobiographical, structured in various affairs. Structure: First-person protagonist with moral digressions. Purpose: Teaching and joy of life.
Romance
Anonymous narrative poems intended to be sung, oral dissemination, documented in the 15th century but likely earlier. Metric: Octosyllabic. Classification: Subject (national epic, French, historical, frontier, fiction). Structure: Story, scene, dialogue, beginning in medias res, abrupt endings. 15th-century novel: Chivalry novel (knight’s adventure, heroism, fidelity to his lady), sentimental novel (shorter, internal action, tragic vision of love).
La Celestina
Fernando de Rojas’ work in 16 and 21 acts. Genre: Drama or dialogue novel, meant to be read, not performed. Dramatic discourse: Dialogue (long and rapid speeches), monologue, comic interludes. Themes: Courtly love, magic, madness, sexual love, rebuke to love. Characters: Calisto, Melibea, Celestina, Parmeno, Elicia and Areusa, Pleberio and Alisa. Purpose: Moralizing, pessimistic and disillusioned vision.