Spanish Literature of the Golden Age: Styles, Authors, and Themes
Spanish Literature of the Golden Age
Literary Styles
Culteranismo
Culteranismo, exemplified by Luis de Góngora, emphasizes formal beauty, vibrant imagery, and sensory language. It features elaborate metaphors, hyperbaton, cultisms, and unusual vocabulary.
Conceptismo
Conceptismo, represented by Francisco de Quevedo and Baltasar Gracián, prioritizes conciseness, wit, and ingenuity. It employs ellipses, paradoxes, wordplay, antithesis, and hyperbole.
Poetry
Poetry of the Golden Age adopted Italian forms like the sonnet, the octava real, and the silva. Common themes included love, often with Petrarchan influences, as well as moral, religious, and satirical subjects.
Prose
The Picaresque Novel
The picaresque novel, a characteristic genre, features a first-person narrative with a realistic structure. The protagonist, a rogue from a low social class, does not typically improve their situation and often becomes a victim of their own actions. Some picaresque novels incorporate moralistic elements.
Authors
Luis de Góngora
Góngora’s works include letrillas, ballads, sonnets, and learned poems. His style is characterized by the use of hyperbaton, extended metaphors, metonymy, antithesis, adjectives, cultisms, and mythological allusions, making his writing challenging to read. Notable works include the Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea.
Francisco de Quevedo
Quevedo wrote love poetry, metaphysical poetry, moral poetry, satirical poetry, and prose. His most famous work is El Buscón, a picaresque novel with moral digressions. The protagonist, Pablos, follows in the footsteps of his dishonorable parents.
Theater of the Golden Age
New Comedy
The New Comedy adhered to the three unities of place, time, and action, characteristic of classical and Renaissance theater. It employed various verse forms, including quatrains for love scenes, stanzas for complaints, and romances for narratives and popular themes drawn from Spanish tradition, history, and legend.
Themes
Honor
The theme of honor was central to Golden Age theater, often focusing on marital fidelity, a relatable issue for the audience. Offenses against honor were typically avenged by the death of the offender, except in the case of the king, who demanded respect. Lope de Vega extended the concept of honor to include villains and the monarchy, linking it to the purity of blood.
Characters
- King: Embodies authority and often dispenses justice.
- Noble Knight: Typically wealthy and powerful, sometimes abusing their authority.
- Gallant Lover: Young, noble, handsome, courageous, and generous.
- Beautiful Lady: Usually of noble lineage.
- Villain: Often an old Christian farmer.
- Gracioso (Clown): Provides comic relief.
Corrales de Comedias
Plays were performed in corrales de comedias, open-air courtyard theaters. The stage was simple, with minimal scenery. The audience was divided by social class, with women in the cazuela (gallery) and mosqueteros (groundlings) standing.
Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega was the most prolific playwright of Spanish literature. His plays often drew from history, such as Fuenteovejuna and Peribáñez y el Comendador de Ocaña. He also wrote comedies and cloak-and-dagger plays, including El perro del hortelano and El villano en su rincón. His plays are characterized by breaking the rule of three unities, dividing the play into jornadas (acts), using polymetry, and employing different verse forms to reflect scene changes. Lope de Vega’s theater lacks the philosophical depth of Calderón’s or the psychological characterization found in other playwrights.
Pedro Calderón de la Barca
Calderón de la Barca is known for his philosophical plays, such as La vida es sueño and El alcalde de Zalamea. In El alcalde de Zalamea, Pedro Crespo, a commoner, hangs Captain Álvaro for dishonoring his daughter. King Philip II approves of Crespo’s act of justice.