16th-18th Century Spanish Poetry: Renaissance to Baroque
16th-18th Century Spanish Poetry
The Renaissance Poetry
Poetry was the most cultivated literary genre during the Renaissance. The main theme was a love for nature, serving as a symbolic and mythical background for the poems, often drawing from Greco-Latin classical myths.
The Introduction of the Sonnet
The introduction of the sonnet, a new form of Italian origin, was a symptom of the evolution of 16th-century poetry, which was still subject to medieval tradition.
The Root of Popular Love Poetry
16th-century poets took advantage of popular literature forms for their compositions. For example, Peter John Timoneda and Seraph of Valencia compiled the collection “Flower of Lovers” (1562), consisting of 280 poems, 54 of which are written in Catalan. The central theme of these poems is love, discussed through the lens of popular poetry.
Baroque Poetry
Baroque poetry reflects an attitude of frustration and disillusionment, a product of a profound social crisis.
Topics
- The passage of time and death
- The duality between the transience of pleasure and ascetic willingness
- The tragicomic-burlesque view of existence
- Political pessimism
Resources
- Artifice: overloaded lexicon and syntax, obscurity of concepts
- Contrast between concepts: life/death, beauty/ugliness, reality/illusion
- Reality distortion
- Abundance of Castilian influences
- Use of rhetorical figures: antithesis, hyperbole, paradox, metaphor, hyperbaton, mythological allusions
Baroque Poetry in Catalonia
During the 17th century, Catalan literature was formally and thematically influenced by Spanish Baroque. The leading representatives of Baroque poetry are Francesc Fontanella and Francesc Vicent Garcia.
Francesc Fontanella
His poetry shows French and Spanish influences, especially in style and vocabulary, characterized by many overlapping words with Spanish. His poetry revolves around two semantic axes: pastoral poems with emotional displays between the shepherd and shepherdess, and sonnets, influenced by Spanish authors like Garcilaso de la Vega.
Francesc Vicent Garcia
Known as the “rector of Vallfogona”, he cultivated a Baroque style. The contrast between beauty and ugliness is evident in his work. He explored both bombastic and satirical styles, praising beauty and mocking ugliness. As a Baroque poet, he showed a pessimistic attitude towards life. As a satirical poet, he addressed a wide range of topics with a burlesque tone, including old age, ugliness, and life, reflecting the cruelty and disappointment of Baroque aesthetics.
Folk Poetry
Folk poetry was anonymous and belonged to the community, which interpreted, added to, and sometimes changed it.
Topics
- Love: courtship, girls’ sorrows, tragic love
- Farming and household
- Children: games and riddles
- Religion: lives of saints, praise of the Virgin Mary
- Historical events: famous characters, battles, and wars
Resources
- Short verses (especially heptasyllabic) and assonant rhyme
- Simple lexicon and syntax (onomatopoeia, interjections, diminutives)
- Abundance of archaisms and vernacularisms
- Closely related to music and singing
- Oral transmission, printed on single sheets: “cane and twine” literature
Goigs
Goigs are religious songs printed on loose sheets that praise the Virgin Mary or saints. They were sung during processions and pilgrimages. Their origins date back to the Middle Ages. Their structure consists of a beginning or “homecoming”, verses or stanzas (7 or 8), and an ending.
Christmas Lyrics
These compositions deal with Christmas celebrations: the birth of Jesus, the adoration of the shepherds and the Magi. Most are characterized by a festive and joyful tone. They are disseminated through song, and the meter varies: there are pentasyllabic and heptasyllabic verses divided into four-verse stanzas.
Corrandes
This term encompasses many short, heptasyllabic songs with four verses and assonant rhyme in pairs. The themes are varied: love songs, longing, work, etc.
Songs of Bandits and Highwaymen
Many songs about bandits and highwaymen originated during the 16th and 17th centuries. These songs have different forms: ballads, “tirallonga” (heptasyllabic verses with assonant rhyme in pairs), and four-line stanzas with heptasyllabic and pentasyllabic verses.