Spanish Renaissance Literature: Rebirth and Renewal

Posted on Sep 19, 2024 in Latin

Rebirth:

The basis of being human: educational values, recoveries of classical literature, optimistic vision of the world, the nature and exaltation of pleasure of Neoplatonism. Appearance of ideal polite and poets like Garcilaso de la Vega. In Spain Cardinal Cisneros highlights the work of vindication and study of the Spanish language: Nebrija’s grammar and Juan de Valderrama’s Dialogue of the Castilian Tongue.

Renaissance Lyric:

  • Is influenced by the literature and poetry of the classic Italian Renaissance, especially Petrarch.
  • Formal features:
    • Metrics… Italy imports the hendecasyllable and overlapping, resulting in the incorporation of other types of stanzas and poems.
    • …stylistic aspects chained tercets (5-verse stanza of hendecasyllable verses with consonant rhyme … the chained ABA ABA BCB CDC series …), the lira (stanza of 5 verses, 2 hendecasyllables and 3 heptasyllables with consonant rhyme aBabB), the royal octave (8-verse stanza of hendecasyllable verses with consonant rhyme ABABABCC), the estancia, the sonnet.
  • Themes and motifs: The main one is love (suffering due to frustration or absence of the beloved) and the description of the beloved, nature (locus amoenus), the carpe diem, mythology.
  • Stages:
    • 1st half of the 16th century: Poetry predominates in the early decades. Songbooks, romances and traditional poems were also important. In this era, Petrarchism broke out and the classical influence predominates. Garcilaso de la Vega stands out.
    • 2nd half of the 16th century: Religious poetry (Fray Luis de León and San Juan de la Cruz). This lyric takes 2 spiritual paths:
      • Ascetic: looking for the perfecting of the soul joined with God through 3 ways: purgative, illuminative and unitive.
      • Mystical: corresponds with the unitive way.

Garcilaso de la Vega:

  • His work consists of 40 sonnets, 3 eclogues, 5 songs, 2 elegies, 1 epistle, becoming the model of later poets.
  • Themes: love (melancholy and sadness due to the absence of a beloved), nature (locus amoenus), the carpe diem and mythology.
  • Poetic evolution: from the first lyric poems influenced by the songbooks and Ausias March, to the assimilationist pole of Petrarchism and the influence of classical literature.
  • Style: naturalness, simplicity, relevance of the epithet, metaphors associated with nature.

Fray Luis de León:

  • Poetry:
    • Poetry includes 23 original poems, and translations and imitations of Latin poets.
    • Odes… themes and topics (desire for communication with God, inner peace, virtuous life, beatus ille topics, and locus amoenus and vivere secum). Influences (Neoplatonism and Stoicism to overcome passions and achieve peace and serenity). Titles (Ode to a retired life, Ode to solitude, Ode to a serene life…; Ode on the Ascension…).
  • Prose work: The Names of Christ, The Perfect Wife, Expositions of the Song of Songs.

San Juan de la Cruz:

  • Poetry:
    • Minor poems and 3 major poems: Dark Night of the Soul, Spiritual Canticle and Living Flame of Love. These last 3 are written in lira.
    • Major poems reflect the mystical experience, the union of the soul with God; provided using symbolic language based on human love. – Dark Night and Spiritual Canticle share the same scheme and argument: the beloved (soul) goes out in search of her beloved (God), finds him and the spiritual marriage is consummated. – Living Flame of Love celebrates the mystical union.
  • Prose work: 4 mystical treatises that discuss the major poems: Ascent of Mount Carmel, Dark Night, Spiritual Canticle and Living Flame of Love (glosses of the homonymous poems).

Renaissance Models:

  • Byzantine novel:
    • Story: 2 young lovers separated; travels with impediments (the most common impediments are pirates, storms, islands, captivity) and final reunion.
    • Speech: it incorporates the in medias res beginning and the interpolation of stories.
    • Titles: The Story of Flores and Blancaflor and The History of Clareo and Florisea by Alonso Núñez de Reinoso.
  • Pastoral novel:
    • Story: shepherds traveling through idealized bucolic spaces, narrating their woes.
    • Speech: in medias res beginning; interpolation of stories; dialogues, letters and poems.
    • Titles: Diana by Jorge de Montemayor.
  • Other models:
    • La Celestina: develops the story of first loves that arise through servants and procuresses (Celestina, the lush Andalusian, and Francisco Delicado).
    • Short novel: appeared in the previous century, idealistic models of the novel remain.
    • Chivalric novel: same as the sentimental one.
    • Moorish novel: idealistic model with idealized Moorish characters, set in Andalusia or North Africa.

Picaresque Novel:

  • Appearance of the genre: circumstances of the appearance…
    • Demographic changes create movements of individuals begging and robbing.
    • Discrimination of Christians.
    • Opening and appearance of Erasmian ideological ideas.
    • Literary reaction against chivalric books, an antihero who is dominated by immediate stimuli.
  • Characteristics and evolution:
    • The work is a fictional autobiography.
    • It is a succession of episodes connected by chance.
    • The protagonist is an itinerant narrator.
    • The work’s ending is subordinate to a purpose.
    • The story follows a temporary evolution.
    • Temporal coincidences exist.
  • Characteristics of the pícaro:
    • Based on living by tricks and traps.
    • Has an origin under predetermined conditions that mark him.
    • Works as a servant for many masters.
    • Acts out of hunger.
    • Suffers many adversities.
    • Is adaptable and not materialistic.
    • Goes from innocence to evil.
    • Has a deformed code of honor.
  • Lazarillo’s life: Lazarillo learns his trade from the blind man and finally takes revenge on him, with the cleric he learns that egoism and greed are human topics, with the squire he learns that honor is not eating, with the buldero he learns to get by with lies.
  • Begging: from a young age he learned to beg with the blind man, how to ask for alms and food, with the squire he has to beg because his master does not give him a good service. His begging is justified when he meets a good master.
  • Criticism of the clergy: the masters of the church can guide or exploit him.
  • Honor and social climbing: Lazarillo inherits his mother’s dishonor… appearance with the squire… his social status rises to work for an archpriest.