Spanish Poetry: Renaissance to Baroque Transformation
Fundamental Changes in 16th-Century Spanish Poetry
San Juan de la Cruz and Garcilaso de la Vega initiated a transformation in Spanish poetry. The year 1526 is symbolically taken as the beginning of this change. Both poets attempted this shift, with Garcilaso achieving a higher quality of poetry. He had the merit of both the Italian influence and the initiative for a total renovation of the metric, which changed the sound of poetry.
Fundamental Changes in the Metric
Before Garcilaso, poets used two main verses: the short octosyllabic and the long dodecasyllabic. However, the latter was no longer used due to its extreme difficulty. Accents always fell on the same syllables, resulting in rigidity and monotony. The new aesthetic ideals brought a new rhythm to poetry, sweet and harmonious.
Key Themes in Garcilaso’s Lyrics
Love and nature are central themes. He discusses feelings, and there is a new sensitivity to external beauty, embodied in a new attention to landscape and feminine beauty. These are grouped together in what is known as bucolic nature, the preferred framework for addressing the theme of love. The description of the idealized landscape is a literary topic known as locus amoenus.
Love
The primary influence on the treatment of the love theme is Petrarchan. Petrarch’s work focuses on the lover’s feelings, analyzing them, often in conflict but always striving for balance. In his Cancionero, one can observe the evolution of a relationship from its beginnings to the death of the lady, who survives in memory.
Baroque Poetry
Three generations of poets coexist in Baroque poetry. Baroque poetry does not represent a break from Renaissance poetry but rather an evolution. Along with a change in aesthetic ideals, it differentiates itself from Renaissance poetry. The first element is the survival of the metric. There is a heightened emphasis on difficulty, understood differently but valued by all. There is also a desire for originality, which leads to a departure from previous models. An obvious change in taste values artifice over the impression of naturalness, the contrast of opposites over harmony, and the dramatism of the Baroque artist. The Baroque artist seeks to surprise and move his audience.
Descriptive poetry appears, considered a new genre. New themes emerge alongside the persistence of those enshrined by earlier poetry. Attention is drawn to the development of satirical and burlesque poetry. In terms of style, there is a whole range of responses to an apparent desire for renovation. Another style, used by Góngora, was called culteranismo by his contemporaries. This term was created by detractors of this style, suggesting that it was a real aesthetic heresy.
Luis de Góngora y Argote
Luis de Góngora y Argote belongs to the first generation of Baroque poets. His work evolves slowly. His resources include the cultured language of the Renaissance literary legacy coupled with the concept and verbal sharpness of the clearest Baroque style. His compositions include letrillas and romances, befitting the traditional nature of these poetic forms. The letrillas are mostly satirical, often attacking the contrast between appearance and reality. Another important group is made up of his sonnets. The first deal with themes within the tradition of love. Towards the end of his life, darker tones appear in these compositions. The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea and Solitudes represent the evolution of Gongorism. The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea is a mythological fable preserved as a structuring element of an argument.
Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas
Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas is the author of a large body of work, both in prose and verse. A division is usually made between works of burlesque and satirical tone and serious works. Regarding style, he is a clear representative of the so-called conceptualist style, characterized by condensation of expression, bold concepts, and extreme verbal acuity.