Spanish Renaissance Literature: Poetry, Prose, and Novels
Spanish Renaissance Literature
Garcilaso de la Vega (1501-1536)
Garcilaso de la Vega, the prototype of the Renaissance gentleman, soldier, and poet, embodied the ideals of arms and letters. His poetic career, which completes the process of assimilation of Renaissance forms and Italian trends initiated by other authors, can be divided into three creative periods:
- Influence of the poetry of song: This period alternates octosyllabic compositions. His verses still lack Petrarchan elements, there are many topics of love poetry from the cancionero tradition, and puns are commonly used.
- Internalization of Petrarchan love: In this stage, Garcilaso internalizes love, describes his feelings, and uses nature as a framework for discussion and a means to portray his beloved.
- Full creative fruit of his Italian stay: This period reflects his approach to classical authors, resulting in formal, sober, and naturally expressive compositions.
Dominant Themes
The dominant theme in Garcilaso’s work is love, which shows Neoplatonist features with Petrarchan traces. Another theme is nature: a stylized environment in which the characters express their love troubles.
Style
Garcilaso’s first stage is marked by the typical resources of the poetry of song: antithesis, opposition, and puns. Later, he seeks harmony and adjusts his poetic language to the Renaissance ideal of naturalness and elegance. He uses parallels, syntax, lists of elements, etc., giving his verse a simple, intuitive expression.
Renaissance Prose
The Prose of Thought
Dialogues
The dialogue genre is based on fiction, where several characters meet to discuss various topics and each expresses a reasoned point of view, allowing the exchange of opinions and perspectives.
Religious Works
Numerous Renaissance treatises and works address the religious experience from a personal point of view. Among the prose writers who treat this issue, Santa Teresa de Jesús stands out, representing, along with San Juan de la Cruz, the peak of Spanish mysticism. The main work of St. Teresa is Interior Castle or Dwellings. In this work, the author symbolizes the process of purification, illumination, and union of the soul with God through a castle where the soul must pass to reach its center, where it meets divinity.
The Novel
Renaissance Possibilities
The broadcast possibilities that the printing press offered made the fiction novel one of the genres preferred by the public. This led to the emergence in the sixteenth century of new narrative forms, such as the picaresque novel, the pastoral novel, the Byzantine novel, and the short story.
The Picaresque Novel: Lazarillo de Tormes
In 1554, The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes, and of His Fortunes and Adversities was published. With its appearance, the picaresque novel emerged, characterized by the following features:
- The main character is a rogue, a marginal individual of low social status, who must earn a living by working as a servant for different masters.
- Narration is done in first person from the rogue’s point of view, as if it were an autobiography.
- The book is written from a key moment in the rogue’s life.
- The rogue’s adventures and misadventures allow us to learn about the harshest aspects of reality.
La Galatea, a Pastoral Novel
The pastoral novel is a typical Renaissance genre that recounts the loves of shepherds in a natural environment. The first novel by Cervantes was La Galatea (1585), which is part of the pastoral tradition. The core of this book recounts the love between two shepherds: Elicio and Galatea.
Persiles and Sigismunda: Byzantine Novel
The Byzantine novel is a travelogue that recounts the adventures of two lovers who are separated by unforeseen events.
The Short Story: The Exemplary Novels
These are twelve stories in which Cervantes found something that could serve as an example or learning for readers.
Don Quixote
The main novel by Miguel de Cervantes is The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha, a masterpiece of Spanish Literature. The first part was published in 1605 and was an immediate success. In 1615, Cervantes published the second part. The first part narrates the adventures of Don Quixote in his first two outings from his village. As the heroes of the books he reads do, he chooses a name for himself, Don Quixote de la Mancha, and one for his horse, Rocinante. Every knight needs a squire, and Don Quixote chooses Sancho Panza, a villager. Don Quixote leaves his village to defend the weak and implement justice on Earth. Throughout the first part, the theme of the senses dominates: he transforms and sees reality as a castle where there are only inns, giant windmills where there are windmills, and powerful armies where there are flocks of sheep. The second part recounts the adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho in his third outing from the village. In this part, the knight is more realistic.