Pre-Renaissance Spanish Literature: Romancero & Poetry
Pre-Renaissance Spanish Literature
Romancero Viejo
Romancero Viejo (Old Romancero) refers to the epic-lyric compositions that arose from the fragmentation of ancient songs of chivalry. From the late fourteenth century, they were transmitted orally. Authors collected and included them in Cancioneros and Romanceros. From these Romanceros, Cervantes and Góngora made new or artistic ballads; they are written and transmitted outside the oral tradition and are of a more refined nature.
Themes
- Historical-National: Old Castilian epics exalting their heroes.
- Novelistic and Lyrical: From the popular imagination.
- Border and Moors: Episodes of warfare between the Moorish and Christian kingdoms.
- Carolingian: Centered on the figure of Charlemagne.
- Breton: Based on the legend of King Arthur.
Metric
They relate to the chanson de geste. Verses of 16 syllables, divided into two hemistiches of 8 syllables each. Each hemistich was an independent verse. The odd verses are free, and the even verses have assonance. The Romance is an infinite series of 8-syllable verses that rhyme in assonance (pairs), with the odd verses being loose.
Style
- Fragmentary Trend: The Romance focuses on essentials.
- Tendency to Repeat: Repetition of phonemes (alliteration); identical words (rhetorical repetition); and phrases (parallelism).
- Freedom of Framework: Use of the imperfect subjunctive. The conditional and imperfect indicative appear frequently.
Lyrical Culture: Cancionero
Love. Cancioneros collected in the Provençal tradition, with direct influence from Petrarch, created a model of love poetry whose identifying features are: reserve and verbal restraint, allegories and personifications of ideas, emotional isolation, and improvisation. The concept of love follows the Provençal tradition.
Couplets of Jorge Manrique
Metrics
It uses the copla manriqueña (Manriquean couplet) of 12 verses, a sextuplet grouped into two broken feet. Verses are of 8 syllables, except for the 3rd and 6th. The rhyme and form are: abcabc / defdef.
Structure
Three parts:
- The first is doctrinal (general reflections on the transience of human life).
- The second adduces the example of prominent figures of the past.
- The third contains the eulogy of the deceased and of death.
Themes
These are common topics; he expresses his feelings from human experience.
- The World: It is a place of transit where men have the opportunity to obtain salvation.
- Fortune: Blind chance that triggers human tragedies (like a wheel, it represents instability).
- Time: It is fleeting and inconsistent.
- Death: Reflects a tradition: its equalizing power, its unpredictable emergence, its destructive power, its unavoidable character, its macabre image, its implacable cruelty.
- Ubi Sunt: “Where are they?” It asks about the whereabouts of characters from the past.
- Fame: From a Christian sense (following an honorable life, the only defense, a consolation for those still left in this world, the means for reaching salvation).
Style
He forgets the artificial language and concepts of his love poetry. His style dispenses with the fashion at the time, debugging language of cultism, hipérbatos, and unnecessary adjectives.
Satire
Two types of satire: social and political.
- Social satire has its most important manifestation in the Dance of Death: its ritual, its meaning, and its democratic and leveling macabre image.
- Political satire is fierce, personal criticism against members of the court.