Renaissance Novels: Byzantine, Pastoral, and More
Byzantine Novel
The discovery of Ethiopian texts and early translations provided a model for a new subgenre of Greek adventure novels during the Renaissance: the Byzantine romance or adventure.
History
The Byzantine novel typically features a young, beautiful, and chaste couple in love who are separated and ultimately reunited. The narrative is structured around a journey, which represents the protagonists’ confrontation with themselves and the world. They overcome challenges with divine grace.
During their journey, the young couple faces battles against pirates, storms, captivity, and other perils.
In Spain, the Byzantine novel’s hero, a young and chaste figure whose primary goal is love, evolved into a pilgrim, symbolizing the Christian man on a religious pilgrimage.
Discourse
The narrative often begins in medias res (in the middle of the action) and incorporates interpolated stories.
Examples of Byzantine novels include The Pilgrim in His Homeland by Lope de Vega and The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda by Miguel de Cervantes.
Pastoral Novel
While the primary source for the Renaissance pastoral novel was Sannazzaro’s Arcadia, influences can also be found in romances like The Loves of Thinning and Florisea, as well as dramatic and lyrical eclogues.
History
The pastoral novel is structured around a voyage where characters move in search of happiness. The narrative typically features two types of actions: one in the present and another in the past, revealed through the stories of the shepherds. The journey incorporates love stories of other characters, which are shared and intertwined.
The characters in pastoral novels are idealized shepherds who behave and speak as artisans, characterized by their chastity. Female characters are particularly prominent.
The setting is a bucolic, Arcadian landscape, featuring elements of the locus amoenus.
Speeches
The pastoral novel shares similarities with the adventure story, beginning in medias res and using interpolated stories.
Dialogue is crucial in these novels, often limiting the narrator’s role to brief descriptions or handing over the narrative to the characters. The shepherds’ dialogues may be interspersed with letters and poems.
Other Narrative Models
The Novel Celestina
This novel narrates a love affair that develops with the help of servants and a go-between, featuring strong erotic themes. A notable work is the lush Andalusian.
The Sentimental Novel
Created in the late fifteenth century by Juan de Flores and Diego de San Pedro, these novels explore the theme of unhappy love and incorporate historical events, often using epistolary narrative. Production of these novels ceased after 1550.
The Romance of Chivalry
This subgenre experienced significant development, with works modeled on medieval chivalric narratives. Its popularity lasted until the early decades of the seventeenth century.
Love and heroic knights from medieval stories are combined with the Christian knight fighting against infidels in Constantinople and, later, the gentleman adventurer. These later novels are imaginative, primarily designed to titillate readers.
The Moorish Novel
The Moorish novel evokes life on the border between Castile and the last Muslim kingdom in the fifteenth century. Alternating real and fictional places, the place names in these works are real. One of the most important stories is that of the Beautiful Jarifa and Abencerrage.
The Moor Abindarraez and the Castilian knight Rodrigo de Narvaez share chivalric traits, and the concept of love aligns with the novel of chivalry. The Abencerrage proposes the idea of possible coexistence between Muslims and Christians.