The Origins of Lyric Poetry in the Middle Ages

Posted on Sep 27, 2024 in Latin

The Origins of Lyric Poetry

Middle Ages

The Middle Ages is the period of history between approximately the fall of the Roman Empire (476) and the discovery of America (1492).

Historical Events

The end of the Roman Empire in Spain saw the settlement of several Germanic peoples, including the Visigoths, who managed to unify the peninsula into a kingdom with its capital in Toledo. Civil wars facilitated the entry of Muslims, and the Islamic domination of the peninsula lasted almost eight centuries. Christian kingdoms were established in the north, while the Muslim south remained. Spain exhibited ethnic and cultural variety, with social minorities such as:

  • Jews: The most influential social group, often illustrated and engaged in intellectual pursuits.
  • Mozarabes: Christians who lived in Muslim territory.
  • Mudejars: Muslims who lived among Christians without changing their religion in exchange for payment.

Thought and Society

After the fall of the Roman Empire in the 5th century, cultural heritage was preserved by the Church and the monks in monasteries. The Church’s activity influenced the theocentric conception of the medieval world. This conception determined the social organization:

  • Bellatores: Those who fight.
  • Oratores: Those who pray.
  • Laboratores: Those who work.

The social organization of medieval feudalism consisted of the obligation of vassals to remain loyal to their lords in exchange for land or income. Society was organized as follows:

  • Nobility: Based its influence on economic and political strength and military power. There was high and low nobility, including knights and warriors who served the powerful.
  • Clergy: Formed by high church dignitaries and low-ranking clergy.
  • Common people: Had no privileges, were the majority of society, and almost all were engaged in agricultural work, often under bonds of feudal serfdom. From the 15th century, cities saw the emergence of a new social group dedicated to craft and commercial work, called the bourgeoisie.

Culture

Medieval culture was theocentric and spread through:

  • The Camino de Santiago: A network of roads that connected Europe to Santiago de Compostela, where pilgrims visited the tomb of the Apostle.
  • Toledo School of Translators: Founded in the 7th century, it became a cultural hub thanks to Alfonso X in the 13th century. Muslims, Jews, and Christians worked together to translate Latin and Arabic texts into Castilian.
  • Universities: Created with privileges granted by the Pope, including those founded in Palencia, Salamanca, and Lleida.

Birth of the Romance Languages

Latin developed into the Romance languages, including Castilian, Catalan, Galician-Portuguese, Astur-Leonese, Aragonese, Navarrese, and Mozarabic.

Origins of Lyric Poetry

Lyric poetry emerged in all cultures as a means of expressing feelings. It was composed to be sung, accompanied by music, and interpreted by troubadours, who were of noble origin, such as knights or clergymen. A courtly lyric was born in the south of France, written in Provençal, whose main theme was courtly love. It idealized the beloved, paying homage and devoting life to love and praise. This Provençal lyric poetry often expressed the pain of unrequited love. In addition to this development, there was another simpler lyric written in Mozarabic, Galician-Portuguese, or Castilian.

Mozarabic Lyric

Mozarabic was the language spoken by Christians in Muslim territory. This language produced the jarchas, considered the oldest Romance literature in Europe. The jarchas are short compositions that appear at the end of Arabic or Hebrew poems called moaxajas, dating from the 11th, 12th, and 13th centuries. The theme often revolves around a woman lamenting the absence of her lover. The vocabulary is predominantly affective, with interrogative and exclamatory sentences expressing her state of mind.

Galician-Portuguese Lyric

Born at the end of the 12th century, it typically has a structure that repeats the same line throughout the poem. The Galician-Portuguese secular lyric includes these types of ballads:

  • Songs of Love: A man sings about love.
  • Songs of the Friend: A woman complains about the absence of her beloved.
  • Mocking Songs: Deride vices or persons.

The religious Galician-Portuguese lyric is represented by the work of Alfonso X, Cantigas de Santa Maria, which contains over 400 songs and is considered the most important work of the 13th century. It recounts miracles of the Virgin, seen as the protector of men.

Castilian Lyric

The preserved texts of Castilian lyric come from songbooks of the 15th and 16th centuries. These collections include songs of May, seafaring songs, and rustic songs. However, the most representative are the carols and serranillas.

  • Carols: Strophic poems composed of a chorus and verses that develop the content of the chorus, usually with an amorous theme.
  • Serranillas: Pastorals derived from Provençal, although these are more realistic. The oldest ones feature a gentleman’s encounter with a shepherdess in the mountains of Castile. The knight seeks the shepherdess’s love, but she either rejects him or expresses her own heartaches.

Narrative Lyric: The Epic

The epic is a lyrical composition composed of a series of narratives in verse called epics, which tell the exploits of a hero. They were part of oral culture and were recited by minstrels who traveled through cities singing stories in exchange for coins, shelter, or food. These stories arose in Castile in the 12th century under the influence of the Chanson de Roland written in France in the 11th century and German songs. The oldest epic poem is the Chanson de Roland, in which the protagonist is presented as a symbol of courage, valor, fidelity to the monarch, and religious spirit. It recounts events with exaggeration and features supernatural elements that idealize historical facts.

Features of the Epic Poem

The most characteristic features are:

  • Historicist Character: The world of epics is that of warriors. Heroes are decorated with superhuman virtues and are able to overcome all obstacles. The hero often appears as a character unjustly treated by society, ensuring that their exploits exhibit a triumphant return.
  • Embodiment of Fate: The hero embodies the fate of his people and spreads the ideals of the feudal class to which he belongs.
  • Structure: The chansons de geste were long compositions of verses, with a measure between 14 and 16 syllables, divided into two hemistiches separated by a pause called a caesura. The rhyme is assonance and is repeated in a variable number of lines that establish a thematic unit, called a tirada.

Castilian Epic

Compared to the French epics, the Castilian epic was more realistic and sober. Three poems are preserved from the Castilian epic:

  • Song of Roncesvalles: Dates from the 13th century and only about 100 verses remain.
  • Mocedades de Rodrigo: Composed in the 14th century.
  • Cantar de Mio Cid: Composed in the 13th century and is almost complete.

There are other songs of which only fragments remain, and some have been reconstructed thanks to medieval chronicles, such as the Song of the Seven Infants of Lara. Between the 14th and 15th centuries, the epic declined, and attempts to offer something new to the public led to the birth of romances.

The Epic: Cantar de Mio Cid

The Cantar de Mio Cid is the glorification of a hero, presented as an exemplary model. It tells the stories of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid, a historical figure. The song tells how King Alfonso VI exiles El Cid from Castile after confiscating his property, but El Cid eventually recovers his lost honor. Some of the most important features of his personality are:

  • Loyalty to the King: El Cid remains faithful to the king at all times, even in exile, and does not rebel against him.
  • Consideration and Honor: Rodrigo is pardoned by the king, and his daughters end up marrying the princes of Navarre and Aragon.
  • Personal Effort and Faith in God: His hero status is based on his personal effort. Rodrigo’s character is based on Christian faith, loyalty to his king, justice towards his subjects, love for his family, and courage in battle.
  • Restraint: He shows prudence in everything he does.

Authorship and Date of Composition

The Cantar de Mio Cid is preserved in a manuscript that ends with a note stating that Per Abbat wrote it in May 1207. Problems of interpretation have led to different interpretations. Currently, valid criticism tends to regard this information as the date of the work’s copying, in the early 13th century. There is no agreement on who Per Abbat was.

Structure of the Cantar de Mio Cid

The Cantar consists of 3730 verses grouped in monorhyme assonant stanzas. The verses all have the same number of syllables and are divided into two hemistiches separated by a caesura. The song is divided into three parts or cantos:

  • Canto of Exile: El Cid is banished by Alfonso VI of Castile and leaves Vivar. He leaves his family in the monastery of San Pedro de Cardeña and embarks on the road of exile, punctuated by battles in foreign lands. He sends gifts to the king to obtain his pardon.
  • Canto of the Wedding: Narrates the conquest of Valencia. El Cid sends a new embassy to King Alfonso VI, and the gifts arouse the greed of the Infantes of Carrión, who ask for the hand of El Cid’s daughters. The King publicly pardons El Cid. The canto ends with the wedding of El Cid’s daughters and the Infantes of Carrión.
  • Canto of the Reproach of Corpes: The Infantes of Carrión show their cowardice and are subjected to revenge. They ask El Cid for permission to take their wives to Carrión, but they abandon them in the oak grove of Corpes. El Cid asks the King for justice, who holds a trial in Toledo. The Infantes are defeated in a duel. The canto ends with the request from the Infantes of Navarre and Aragon to marry Doña Elvira and Doña Sol.

Style

The song is written with great realism. The narrative is full of ritual formulas:

  • Epic Epithets: Adjectives used to characterize the hero’s features. E.g., “whoever in good prays.”
  • Pleonasms: Used to add expressiveness to the text. E.g., “tears of the eyes.”
  • Appeals to the Public: Intended to keep the reader’s attention. E.g., “do not lose sight of her.”
  • Use of Arabic Particles: Used as equivalent to the interjection “oh.”
  • Suppression of the Verb: The elimination of verb forms makes the poem more dynamic.
  • Speed and Rhetorical Repetition: Repetition of the same concept with different words.

Narrative Lyric: The Romancero

In the 14th century, epic poetry gradually disappeared, and romances emerged. A romance is a poem of variable length, written in eight-syllable verses, in which the even lines rhyme in assonance and the odd lines are unrhymed. This loose structure is explained by its original relationship with the epic songs. The oldest romance dates from 1421.

Themes

By content, romances fall into:

  • Historical: Based on political events in the history of the Christian kingdoms of the peninsula. They can focus on a character or seek to disseminate important news. The latter are called “news romances” and are divided into border romances and Moorish romances.
    • Border Romances: Narrated events on the border during the Reconquista and reported the progress of the war. E.g., “Know ye Don Ray Juan.”
    • Moorish Romances: Embraced the vision of the conquered Moors with great drama and sensibility. E.g., “The Moorish King Who Lost Alhama.”
  • Epic and Literary: Derived from epic compositions, whose heroes are characters in the court of Charlemagne. One of the most important was the Romance of Doña Alda, which narrates the siege in which Don Roland’s beloved receives the news of his death.
  • Romantic and Lyrical: Including some like the Romance of Count Arnaldos, whose greatest charm lies in the final verses, and the Romance of the Prisoner, tied to the lyric of the songs called mayo. The theme is love in all its manifestations. E.g., the Romance of Fontefrida.

Ballads

Romances began to be collected according to their themes, resulting in printed collections called romanceros. They gained great importance, and in the 16th century, cultured poets began to compose new ballads based on popular ones. According to their intention, they are classified as:

  • Old Ballad: Formed by texts of oral tradition and anonymous.
  • New Ballad: Composed by known authors with an artistic intention.

Style

Romances have a characteristic style that distinguishes them from epic poems. The main difference is that the affective element acquires greater importance. The most characteristic features are:

  • Preference for action over description.
  • Fragmented structure.
  • Use of dialogue.
  • Beginning in medias res, i.e., starting in the middle of the action without preparing the reader.
  • Use of truncated endings.
  • Archaic use of morphology, syntax, and lexicon.
  • Substitution of past verb forms by present ones.
  • Use of lyrical repetition.
  • Use of questions and exclamations to heighten the drama.

Mester de Clerecía

A cultured literary movement called mester de clerecía emerged, consisting of clerics and intellectuals. Their works were dedicated to spreading the knowledge acquired from Latin texts. From the beginning, this school exhibited a desire for formal perfection, a characteristic feature being the use of the cuaderna vía: stanzas of four verses of 14 syllables, with a caesura dividing the verses into two hemistiches of 7 syllables, and consonant rhyme. These works were composed to be recited, not sung, and represent a poetic current that grew in prestige. The language of the clergy was Latin, but they began to use the vernacular more effectively. The first manifestation of this cultured group’s use of the vernacular is found at the beginning of the Libro de Alexandre.

Classification of Works

: the work of the authors of mester of clergy was developed mainly in the ages 13 and 14.las most important works from this period can be classified as metric as follows:-anonymous works written in rib via: book alexandre, introduces Spanish literature in the legend of Alexander the Great, presented as a paradigm of the gentleman medieval.libro of Apollonius, has an adventure story in the Byzantine manner, ie with complicated adventures, travel history etc.narra Apollonius of tiro.poema king of Fernando Gonzalez, tells the life of Fernando Gonzalez, the first code castellano.todo the story is structured around three themes: Castillo, Fernando Gonzalez, and the monastery of arlanza.-anonomas works organized in couplets: santa maria Egyptian life; poem that emerges from a group of legends that derive from the life of Mary magdalena.disputa of soul and body; poem that meditates on death, a theme very common in the Middle Ages.is included in the literature of clergy debates.MESTER: GONZALO DE BERCEO: romance was the first poet in berceo conocido.nacio name, was linked from very small to the monastery of San Millan de la head (La Rioja). 13th century in this area appeared silent emilianenses.glosas glosses: Latin texts are prose where castellano.son apreço few words of the 10th century and anonimas.hay 2 types: Emilianenses: they were found in San Millan de la whorl of La Rioja, and silent: there were in Santo Domingo de Silos. shown in his works as a zealous priest who wants his listeners instill devotion to the Mass, the Virgin and the Saints-WORKS: not meant to be original but is subject to written sources, the autoridad.sus that values of works can be classified as “lives of saints: lives of Santo Domingo de Silos, Life of San Millan de la Cogolla berceo saint to whom he felt closely connected, the martyrdom of Saint Lorenzo.-doctrinal works : the sacrifice of the Mass, made possibly by reason of his ordination, the signs that will appear before the trial final.-Marian works: loordes of Our Lady, Joys of the Virgin in the considerations that mix the passion of Christ , and miracles of our WIFE STYLE: The style of Gonzalo de berceo is simple and popular as it reflects their versos.los strongest features of his style are “simple style,” submission to the written sources in which basa.-trend is novel, to interest the listener or reader with the poet’s presence at first persona.-utilization of resources as vocative minstrel, formulas, etc …-employment beloved Rioja 13.-century use of rhetorical devices as metaphors, comparisons, hyperbole … “vias are units of frames dintacticas completas.-MIRACLES OF OUR LADY: is his most extensive and important and the oldest collection of miracles of the Virgin in romance.exalta’s role as mediator viegas in the salvation of hombres.la work is formed by:-introduccion: allegorical type refers to the fall of man by sin while ensuring their salvation through devotion to the Virgin-twenty-five miracles in all appears as an intercessor for its virgin devotos.cada miracle has this structure: Introduction that places the character, the prodigal, the exhortation to the cult of the Virgin of clergy maria.MESTER: ARCIPRESTE DE HITA: The Book of Good Love is the mester of the most important work of clergy in the 14th century the rise of the bourgeoisie in the cities introduces new values besides the religious estrctamentes: the Goca of pleasures, love affairs … Juan Ruiz’s work shows that world in which bourgeois poeta.del author moves only know that his name is Juan Ruiz and was Dean of hita.el Book of Good Love is love theme sometimes reported a god, others to love mundano.consta of over 7000, and how autobiographical is featuring what serves to provide various materials and alos episodios.-STRUCTURE: The Book of Good Love begins with a prologue in which he explains the intent of the work: warn about the dangers of the structure as if amor.se was a love story autobiografico.las adventures of the hero are caused by their desire conquista.a throughout the story are interspersed elements of different kinds:-coloeccion of enxiemplos: A collection of tales and fables, “satire: satire on the money against … vice-didactic digressions: on civil rights etc … adaptation of the ars-amadi: an adaptation of the Latin poet Ovid sample teachings from the lips of Love-amore pamphilus recreation: recreation of 12th century Latin comedy that tells the seduction of a girl and that is recovered in the loves of Don and Dona endrina. melon-lyrical poetry: a collection of poems which includes secular and devotional songs.-narrative allegorical tale that exalts lledo parody of spring: the battle of Don Carnal and Doña cuaresma.la didactic and moralizing intention that the author proclaims in the preface is sometimes lost for the singing of the pleasures of love-STYLE : almost everything in this letter via rib, with the exception of the lyrical poems that are written in verse cortos.los style most prominent features are:-prevalence of conjoined sentences and use of the exclamation, “repetition of spoken language, as the use of suffixes,-abundance of nouns with connotative values: procuress,-use of jargon, “employment of rhetorical devices as metaphor, antithesis, parallelism, anaphora, puns, and hyperbole.