Renaissance Literature in Spain: A Golden Age of Prose and Poetry
Garcilaso de la Vega
Life
Representing the Renaissance ideal of the gentleman: military man (brave warrior) and scholar (great poet). His lifelong love, Isabel Freire, inspired his love poetry.
Works
He penned over 50 poems, including 8 sonnets and three Eclogues (pastoral works). Key themes include his love for Isabel Freire, female beauty, idealized nature, and carpe diem: the exhortation to enjoy youth before old age.
Style
Garcilaso’s poetry signifies a profound renewal of poetic language, embodying
Read More20th Century Spanish Theater (Up to 1939)
In the early decades of the 20th century, there were several attempts to renew the theater scene, which in the last decades of the previous century had been dominated by the model of realistic drama and the works of José Echegaray.
European theatrical trends were related to innovative efforts like poetic drama, consolidated with the premiere in Paris of The Intruder. Avant-garde groups in Spain sought to create a new concept of drama. However, attempts to renew the drama were not as successful as
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Renaissance Culture and Humanism
Anthropocentrism and Humanistic Studies
The Renaissance witnessed a shift in the understanding of human beings and their connection to God and nature. Man became the focal point (anthropocentrism). Humanism, a prevailing intellectual movement grounded in the studia humanitatis (humanistic studies), emphasized the study of classical Latin and valued the development of human potential. It also saw a resurgence of the chivalric ideal intertwined with culture.
Renaissance
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Traditional Theatre of Court
France
Two prominent French authors of this period, Giraudoux and Anouilh, drew inspiration from historical and mythological sources. Jean Giraudoux, a novelist, playwright, and essayist, possessed a lyrical style, a sharp sense of humor, and a penchant for grand narratives, as seen in his Trojan War fantasia. His tragedy, La Guerre de Troie n’aura pas lieu (The Trojan War Will Not Take Place), explores the dominance of fate over human intentions. Jean Anouilh followed
Read MoreSpanish Theater: From 1940 to Present
The Impact of the Civil War (1940s)
The Spanish Civil War had a devastating impact on the theater. The death and exile of writers, actors, and directors, coupled with commercial and ideological pressures, resulted in a period of decline from 1939 onwards. In the 1950s, a realistic and politically engaged theater emerged, but censorship and self-censorship among writers hindered its development.
Theater in the 1940s
The theater of the 1940s reflected the bourgeois society and its ideology, presenting
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Romanticism
Romantic artists, influenced by the Enlightenment’s emphasis on individual rights and free expression, reacted against the established rules of Classical and Renaissance art embraced by Neoclassicism. Romanticism aimed to reveal the subjective and irrational aspects of humanity, previously concealed by rigid social and aesthetic norms.
The Origins of Romanticism
In the latter half of the 18th century, pre-Romantic movements emerged, challenging Classical aesthetics and Enlightenment rationalism.
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