Spanish Literature of the Renaissance: Poetry and Prose
Reign of Charles I (1516-1556)
His reign began with a civil confrontation in Castilla (Communities Revolt), but he suppressed the revolt of the Communards in 1521. Carlos I had a relatively quiet reign in terms of internal politics.
Reign of Felipe II (1556-1598)
Son and successor of Charles I, King Felipe II was meticulous, conscientious, and hardworking, spending hours in his office studying political problems.
The Renaissance Ideology
- The Separation between the Natural and the Supernatural: Renaissance poets often explored the relationship between the mundane and the divine.
- Anthropocentrism: God remained a central figure, but there was a growing focus on humanity as the center of culture and knowledge.
- Humanism: This emphasized the study of classical Greek and Latin authors and the revival of their ideas.
- Neoplatonism: This philosophical doctrine posited that the contemplation of beauty leads to the elevation of the spirit.
Characteristics of Renaissance Poetry
- Themes: Love was a central theme, often explored through concepts like “Carpe Diem” (seize the day) and “Beatus Ille” (happy the man who…).
- Forms: Renaissance poets introduced the hendecasyllable (11-syllable verse) and heptasyllable (7-syllable verse), used in various stanza forms like the lira, estancia, and octava real. They also employed the sonnet and the silva.
Juan Boscán (1492-1542)
This Barcelona poet’s work is grouped into three books. His compositions, while influential, do not possess the formal perfection that characterizes the work of his friend, Garcilaso de la Vega, who persuaded him to adopt the hendecasyllable.
The Seville School
Characterized by its brilliant use of language and rhetoric, this school centered around the Seville poet Fernando de Herrera (1534-1597).
- Love Poems: Herrera’s love poems are dedicated to Doña Leonor de Milán, whom he idealizes as the embodiment of supreme beauty.
- Patriotic Compositions: These works extol the greatness of the Spanish Empire with grand, rhetorical language.
The School of Salamanca
This school emphasized a balance between form and content, employing a more sober language than the Seville school.
Fray Luis de León (1527-1591)
Born in Belmonte (Cuenca), Fray Luis studied at the University of Salamanca and mastered Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. He wrote theological treatises and biblical commentaries in Latin. His Castilian prose works include “La Perfecta Casada” (“The Perfect Wife”) and “De los Nombres de Cristo” (“Of the Names of Christ”). His verse includes the famous “Oda a la Vida Retirada” (“Ode to a Retired Life”).
Mysticism
Asceticism
Asceticism, the practice of self-denial and spiritual discipline, is considered a prerequisite for the mystical experience.
The Mystic
Mysticism goes a step beyond asceticism, involving a direct, personal experience of union with the divine.
Santa Teresa de Jesús (1515-1582)
Santa Teresa wrote both prose and verse. Her most important works include “El Libro de la Vida” (“The Book of My Life”), “El Libro de las Fundaciones” (“The Book of Foundations”, about the convents she established), and “Camino de Perfección” (“The Way of Perfection”, offering guidance to nuns).
Prose Genres
- Historical Prose: Chronicles were a significant form of historical writing.
- Didactic Prose: Humanists cultivated this genre, imitating Latin models, particularly in the first half of the 16th century.
- Idealist Novels: This category includes four subgenres: chivalric romance, pastoral romance, Moorish novel, and Byzantine novel.
- Romance of Chivalry: This genre evolved from the medieval epic poem, incorporating fantastical elements.
- Byzantine Novel: Inspired by translated Greek novels, these works combined travel and adventure with sentimental plots.
- Pastoral Novel: Characterized by idealized depictions of nature and shepherds expressing their love sorrows.
- Moorish Novel: These stories often featured themes of love and reconciliation between Christians and Moors.
- Realistic Novel: This subgenre aimed to reflect contemporary reality, portraying the less glamorous aspects of the time.
- Picaresque Novel: This genre, exemplified by “Lazarillo de Tormes”, focused on the adventures of a roguish protagonist.
Lazarillo de Tormes (1554)
“La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus Fortunas y Adversidades” (“The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities”) was published anonymously in 1554 in three simultaneous editions (Burgos, Alcalá, and Antwerp). The author’s identity remains unknown.
Poetic Language
Genesis and Intentionality of Language
Poetic language is language used in a way that evokes feelings of strangeness, surprise, and beauty. This aesthetic function is crucial, as it distinguishes poetic and literary texts from other types of texts (legal, journalistic, etc.).
Poetic Language Resources
- Unusual Words: This includes archaisms (old-fashioned words), neologisms (newly coined words), and cultismos (learned or obscure words).
- Unusual Syntactic Constructions: Examples include hyperbaton (inversion of normal word order) and parallelism (repetition of grammatical structures).
- Epithets: Ornamental adjectives used to enhance descriptions.
- Synaesthesia: The attribution of sensory adjectives to nouns in unexpected ways (e.g., “loud color”).
- Rhythm: Achieved through the metrical structure of the text, including rhyme, pauses, stress, and syllable count.
- Rhetorical Figures: Common in poetry, these include metaphor, metonymy, anaphora, etc.
Rhetorical Figures
- Phonic Resources: These aim to create sound effects.
- Lexicosemantic Resources: These involve using the meaning of words in unique ways.
- Comparison: Establishes a similarity between something real and something imagined.
- Metaphor: Goes beyond comparison, asserting an identity between two different things.
- Morfosyntactic Resources: These affect the form of words or sentence structure.
- Anaphora: Repetition of a word at the beginning of successive lines or sentences.
- Hyperbaton: Alteration of the normal word order in a sentence.
- Parallelism: Repetition of a grammatical structure in parallel phrases or clauses.