The Renaissance Lyric and Spanish Literature’s Golden Age
The Renaissance Lyric
Italian Influence
Italian poetry introduced two key innovations: the pentameter and enjambment. These were incorporated into various Renaissance lyric verse forms, including triplets, lira, octave, sonnet, and Sapphic stanza.
Style and Themes
In the early 16th century, poetry emphasized simplicity and natural expression. This new poetry drew inspiration from Neo-Platonism, classical literature, and the Italian poetry of Petrarch.
The dominant theme was love, often portraying women according to Renaissance beauty standards and associating them with nature imagery. Nature itself was another frequent theme, often depicted as a locus amoenus (pleasant place). Other themes included friendship and courtly compliments.
Religious and moral poetry also flourished during this period, exploring ethical topics such as:
- The beatus ille: Expressing disdain for urban life and the dominance of passions.
- Self-awareness and introspection.
Garcilaso de la Vega
Revolutionizing Spanish Poetry
Garcilaso’s work revolutionized Spanish poetry, establishing a model for future poets. His primary theme was love, often tinged with melancholy and sadness. Other poems explored themes of friendship, fate, fortune, and the control of passions.
Poetic Style
His early poems show the influence of Petrarch’s style, while later works, particularly songs, exhibit a more personal and intense tone, drawing on the resources of the cancioneril lyric tradition. He also incorporated classical genres into his Petrarchan poetry.
Eclogues:
- Eclogue I: Features monologues of two shepherds lamenting the pain of rejection and the death of their beloved. Written in Petrarchan song form.
- Eclogue II: The first part focuses on the pain and madness of unrequited love. Employs chained triplets, heroic verse with rhyme, and internal stanzas.
- Eclogue III: Narrates the stories woven by four nymphs on the banks of the Tagus River. Includes love songs of the shepherds Alcino and Tirreno. Utilizes the ottava rima (eight-line stanza).
Garcilaso’s poetry is characterized by a natural expressiveness, the use of epithets, metaphors, personifications, and hyperbole.
Fray Luis de León
Moral Poetry
Fray Luis’s work comprises twenty original poems, mostly in lira form. His poetry is primarily moral, drawing inspiration from classical poets like Horace and Virgil, as well as biblical texts. Neoplatonic and Stoic philosophy also influenced his work.
Themes and Style
He believed that tranquility and goodness could be achieved through self-knowledge. These ideals are expressed in his poetry through the beatus ille theme. The locus amoenus represents the ideal setting for poetry, music, and peace.
Fray Luis’s poetic language is notable for its use of metaphors, word repetitions, anaphora, Latinisms, and the occasional use of cultismo (a highly ornate style).
Lazarillo of Tormes
The Picaresque Novel
Lazarillo of Tormes is a landmark work in Spanish literature, inaugurating the picaresque novel subgenre.
Characteristics of the Picaresque
These narratives typically feature a first-person, pseudo-autobiographical account of a protagonist from a humble background who leaves home and serves various masters. The protagonist is characterized by roguish behavior and a strong desire to improve their social standing. Picaresque stories often aim to explain the protagonist’s eventual state of dishonor.
Authorship and Influences
The earliest surviving editions of Lazarillo date back to 1554. Several authors have been proposed, including Fray Juan de Ortega, Alfonso Valdes, and Cervantes de Salazar.
The novel exhibits formal and thematic influences from works such as The Golden Ass, the fourth book of The Brave Knight Rinaldo of Montalban, Love Letters Process, and folktales.
Lazarillo’s Journey
Lazarillo, a child forced to leave his family, serves several masters and develops various skills. His life is structured around three modules representing his childhood, adolescence, and youth:
- First Module: Childhood (blind man, cleric, squire)
- Second Module: Adolescence (friar, pardoner, chaplain)
- Third Module: Youth (chaplain, bailiff, archpriest)
Unlike protagonists in other novels, Lazarillo’s character is shaped by the events he experiences and endures.
Narrative Structure and Language
Lazarillo is structured as a letter or epistle written by the protagonist, forming a monologue in contrast to the dialogue-driven pastoral novel. The novel employs various types of speech, including referential, descriptive, and dramatic. Evaluative and universal discourse are also prominent.
The central themes of Lazarillo are honor and religion.
Cervantes
A Prolific Narrator
Miguel de Cervantes was an avid reader of contemporary novels, romances, Byzantine novels, pastoral novels, Moorish tales, and picaresque stories. His own narrative work emerged within this context.
Major Works
His most significant works include La Galatea, Exemplary Novels, Don Quixote de la Mancha, and The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda.
Exemplary Novels and Don Quixote
The Exemplary Novels blend realism and idealism, criticism and conformity, burlesque and seriousness, incorporating various narrative styles and folk elements from the period.
In Don Quixote, Cervantes parodies the chivalric romance genre to critique it, making it a central element of the book.
Góngora
From Minor to Major Art
Góngora’s poetry evolved from minor art to a more complex, Petrarchan style.
- Minor Art Poetry: Cultivated ballads, notably the Fable of Pyramus and Thisbe and Letrillas.
- Sonnets: Primarily focused on the theme of love, following the Petrarchan tradition.
- Major Poetry: Includes the Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea and Solitudes. Love remains a central theme, but pastoral elements are also prominent.
Góngora’s style is characterized by its difficulty, stemming from mythological allusions, the use of religious vocabulary, and elaborate rhetorical constructions.
Lope de Vega
A Prolific Writer
Lope de Vega was a remarkably prolific writer.
Diverse Poetic Forms
His poetry encompasses both minor art compositions and Italianate poetry.
- Romances: Lope was a pioneer of the new ballad form, particularly excelling in religious and moral romances.
- Petrarchan Poetry: His sonnets are particularly noteworthy. He also wrote epic poetry, such as Dragontea and The Beauty of Angelica.
- Religious Poetry: The Sacred Rhymes is a collection of sonnets and other devotional poems.
Lope’s final poetic publication was Rimas Humanas y Divinas del Licenciado Tomé de Burguillos.
Quevedo
Thematic Diversity
Quevedo wrote both high art and minor art poetry. His work is often classified thematically.
- Love Poetry: Explores familiar themes such as the beauty of the unattainable beloved, the lover’s suffering and tears, amorous madness, and faithful love that transcends death.
- Metaphysical and Moral Poetry: These poems reveal a profound sense of disillusionment. Quevedo critiques the vices of his time and passionately defends virtue and eternal values.
- Satirical and Burlesque Poetry: Criticizes the customs and social types of his era.
- Religious Poetry: Repentance for sins is a prominent theme, and other poems reflect on the Passion of Christ.
Poetic Style
Quevedo’s satirical and burlesque poetry utilizes various resources to create caricature and provoke laughter. His serious style is marked by the use of a learned lexicon, hyperbole, and a cautionary tone.
Quevedo is also a master of lexical invention and the modification of idioms and proverbs, particularly for parodic purposes.
The National Comedy
Lope de Vega’s Innovation
The Spanish national comedy, also known as the comedia nueva, was created by Lope de Vega and continued to be developed by other playwrights, including Calderón de la Barca.
Mixing Tragedy and Comedy
Lope justified the blending of tragedy and comedy, arguing that both elements are present in life.
Structure and Conventions
Playwrights employed scene changes and manipulated time as needed by the plot. The unity of action was generally respected. Plays were typically divided into three acts, corresponding to three days. Within the acts, scenes were distinguished by changes in meter.
Dramatic Decorum
Dramatic decorum refers to the appropriateness of characters’ behavior and language to the conventions of their social roles. Decorum is related to verisimilitude, which varied depending on the type of play. Lope advocated for pure and chaste language. Meter was also adapted to the situation and character, leading to the recommendation of polymetry, or the use of a variety of meters and stanzas.
Themes and Characters
Lope identified two primary themes for plays: honor and virtuous actions. Characters were defined more by their gender and social roles than by their individual personalities. They typically fell into six basic types: the lady, the gallant, the powerful man, the old man, the gracioso (comic figure), and the servant.