Renaissance and Baroque Literature in Spain
The Renaissance
The Renaissance, a cultural movement during the sixteenth century, transformed European life. Key features include the recovery of classical Greek and Latin, the rebirth of classical culture, the valuation of man and the world, and the shift from theological to human culture.
Humanism, a cultural and ideological force emerging in late fourteenth-century Italy, aimed to restore classical ideals. Its two main tenets were the study of classical Greek and Latin, and the valuation of the world and humanity.
The recognition of human dignity brought anthropocentrism, contrasting with medieval geocentrism.
Renaissance Lyric Topics
Love: Expresses the poet’s subjectivity and personal feelings.
Nature: The action typically unfolds in idealized, eternally spring landscapes.
Mythology: Greek and Latin myths, stripped of religious meaning, symbolize nature.
Other: Themes of “Carpe diem” and “Ille beatus.”
Castilian Lyric Poetry in the Renaissance
The Spanish Renaissance unfolded in two stages. The first half of the sixteenth century saw the assimilation of Italian influences, the dissemination of Erasmus’s ideas, and the introduction of new literary themes and forms.
The second period, coinciding with Philip II’s reign, witnessed a strong national and Catholic identity in culture, with religious themes becoming characteristic.
Garcilaso de la Vega (1501-1536)
A Spanish soldier and Golden Age poet, Garcilaso de la Vega is considered one of history’s greatest Spanish-language writers. His works include eclogues, sonnets, songs, and epistles, focusing on love, nature, and mythology.
Fray Luis de León (1527-1591)
A poet, humanist, and Augustinian friar of the School of Salamanca, Fray Luis de León is a key figure in the second phase of the Spanish Renaissance and ascetic literature. His poetry reflects the soul’s yearning to detach from earthly matters and reach God, identified with peace and knowledge. Moral and ascetic themes dominate his work, including “Life Retreat,” “Noche Serena,” “Francisco Salinas,” and “A Felipe Ruiz.”
San Juan de la Cruz (1542-1591)
Known as Fray Juan de Santo Matia in his student years, San Juan de la Cruz was a mystic poet and Carmelite friar of the Spanish Renaissance. He became the Patron Saint of Spanish-language poets in 1952. His major works include “Dark Night of the Soul,” “Spiritual Canticle,” and “Living Flame of Love.”
The Baroque
The seventeenth century, the Baroque era, was a time of crisis and decline, marked by increasing social class disparities and a pessimistic mentality obsessed with life’s brevity.
Baroque literature expressed the distance from reality through exaggeration, concealing reality with abundant decoration, and distorting reality to emphasize contrasts: grotesque deformation and idealization.
Baroque artists and writers sought originality. Literary language was characterized by complexity in form and content, with formal difficulty equating to artistic beauty.
Two trends existed in Baroque poetry: the popular current, imitating traditional ballads with clear expression and simple language, and the cultured lyric, featuring conceptismo and culteranismo.
Culteranismo aimed to surprise the reader with obscurity, avoiding vulgarity. The focus was on how something was said, not what was said. It employed a refined lexicon, complex metaphors, and mythological elements. Luis de Góngora is its main exponent.
Conceptismo, led by Francisco de Quevedo, focused on ingenious associations of ideas and subtle, artificial expression, primarily using semantic resources.
Luis de Góngora (1561-1627)
A Spanish Golden Age poet and playwright, Góngora is the greatest exponent of culteranismo. His works, including romances, sonnets, and letrillas, were subject to analysis even in his time. His “Solitudes” (1613) is a notable work.
Francisco de Quevedo (1580-1645)
A nobleman, politician, and writer of the Spanish Golden Age, Quevedo is a major figure in Spanish literature. He held the titles of Marquis of la Torre de Juan Abad and Knight of the Order of Santiago. His poems are classified as philosophical, moral, love-related, and satirical-burlesque.
Lope de Vega (1562-1635)
One of the most important poets and playwrights of the Spanish Golden Age, Lope de Vega, known as the “Phoenix of Wits” and “Monster of Nature” (by Cervantes), revitalized Spanish theater. Alongside Tirso de Molina and Calderón de la Barca, he represents the Spanish Baroque theater. His works are still performed today and are considered among the highest achievements in Spanish literature and arts. He was also a great lyric poet and novelist.