15th-Century Spanish Love, Moral, and Religious Poetry
Love Poetry
Two authors in love poetry include:
- Íñigo López de Mendoza, also known as the Marquis of Santillana. One of the most powerful nobles of the first half of the 15th century, his palace housed the best library of its time. Ten love songs with the theme of courtly love have survived from this author. He is famous for his “serranillas,” of which ten are preserved. The “serranilla” recounts the love affair between a knight and a beautiful and idealized shepherdess, who always rejects him. What is novel about these compositions is that, unlike in the 14th-century *Book of Good Love*, here we see an evolution toward courtliness and refinement.
- Juan de Mena was the chronicler (historian) of King Juan II. He is famous for his long poem *Labyrinth of Fortune*, inspired by Dante’s *Divine Comedy*, in which the poet extols the glories of King Juan II in the near future. The book includes 300 songs (eight-verse dodecasyllabic rhymes).
Moral Poetry
Moral poetry departs from the theme of love poetry. Poems appear that condemn the world in general, and *Verses on the Death of his Father* by Jorge Manrique (1440-79).
Jorge Manrique
Jorge Manrique was born in Palencia around 1440. A knight and poet, he was a man of intense military life. His poetic work is brief; only 49 poems of courtly love have come down to us, and *Coplas a la muerte de su padre* (*Verses on the Death of his Father*), which gave him fame.
Verses on the Death of his Father
The poem consists of 40 verses composed of Manriquean stanzas (pie quebrado): each couplet is a sextuplet formed by two eight-syllable verses, except for the 3rd and 6th, which range between 3 and 5 syllables, and are therefore called “pie quebrado” (broken foot). The rhyme is consonant.
Themes
- Doomsday
- Fleeting earthly goods
- Transience of time
- Death
A poetic and posthumous tribute that the poet surrenders to his father should be added. The deceased appears as a model and guide of exemplary conduct to follow (it is a morality play). As pointed out, the structure has three parts:
- The first goes from I to XIV and talks about the transience of life and all things in the world.
- The second is from XV to XXIV, and it exemplifies everything through facts and cases of famous people, using the *ubi sunt*? trope.
- The third is from XXV to XL and talks about the personality of his father, Don Rodrigo Manrique.
Meaning of the Verses
Jorge Manrique develops the action of the poem on three planes of life:
- Earthly hell filled with sins.
- The supernatural beyond: life conditions.
- The existence of honorable fame and glory.
Death is inevitable, but it can be overcome by a lifetime of honor and heroism, which gives salvation and eternal fame in mortality.
Language and Style
Emphasis is placed on the simplicity of the lexicon, scarcity, and simplicity of rhetorical devices such as anaphora, exclamations, antithesis, metaphors, and rhetorical questions. The most important metaphors are those of the dew and the river, which go to the sea, a collection image used by Antonio Machado in the 20th century.
Religious Poetry
This poetry criticizes the corruption of the clergy. Often, the cult of the Virgin remains, although the figure of Christ also joins in. In terms of the types of poems used in the indicated periods, there are the *Cantigas*, compositions intended to be sung with a theme of love or the Virgin, and the *Dichos* (Sayings), compositions intended for reading, longer, and also with a love or moral theme.