A Literary Journey Through Spanish Literature: From Renaissance to Modernism

Posted on May 13, 2024 in Music

The Narrative of the Renaissance

In the late fifteenth century, prose literature had three main characteristics:

Types of Prose Literature

  1. The Sentimental Novel: These novels focused on themes of courtly love and infatuation.
  2. The Romance of Chivalry: These novels recounted the fantastic adventures of knights errant. The best-known authors in this genre were Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo, who wrote Amadis of Gaul, and Cervantes, who wrote Don Quixote.
  3. The Picaresque Novel: These novels dealt with themes prevalent in society, often criticizing the nobility and the clergy with a realistic approach. Notable authors include Fernando de Rojas, with his work Celestina, and the anonymous masterpiece, The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes.

The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes

The structure of the novel takes the form of a long letter written by Lazarus, in which he narrates his life story. It is an autobiography that explains the events from his childhood, where he spent a life of mischief and hardship, serving different masters to survive, until he reached adulthood and understood the false values of society. The novel is written with a humorous tone and depicts the immortal conduct of all its characters.

Characteristics of the Novel

  • 1st Person Narrator: The story is told as an autobiography.
  • Life Journey: The narrator recounts his life from childhood to adulthood.
  • Antihero: Lazarus is an antihero, facing constant misfortune and coming from humble origins.
  • Process of Learning: He learns to cheat, lie, and navigate the harsh realities of his world.
  • Alternating Fortunes: Good luck and misfortune alternate throughout his life.
  • Realism: The novel presents a realistic portrayal of society, incorporating irony, humor, and social criticism.
  • Mixing Religion and Vulgar Language: The novel blends religious themes with everyday language.
  • Social Critique: It criticizes societal issues like hunger (especially among children) and the hypocrisy of the clergy.

The entire novel reflects the society of 16th century Spain, highlighting the hardships and hunger faced by the poor, as well as the moral misery and falsehood of the gentry. The pessimistic tone suggests a world where the author is constantly deceived by society. The work’s letter format allows Lazarus to justify his actions, such as stealing, lying, and cheating. Lazarillo de Tormes was published in 1554. Other important works in this genre include Pícara Justina and Buscón by Quevedo in the 17th century.

Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote

Published in 1605, Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote achieved immense success and was translated into various European languages. It is a novel of chivalry, told with humor, that presents a character who is the opposite of what a traditional gentleman should be. Don Quixote, driven mad by reading countless books of chivalry, embarks on adventures with his squire, Sancho Panza, seeking glory as a superhuman hero. They face absurd situations, always fighting injustice and attempting to impose goodness upon the world. Ultimately, Don Quixote is defeated, and as he recovers, he renounces chivalry and is remembered for his kindness.

Poetry and Romanticism

Romanticism was a cultural movement that influenced literature and art in Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century. Its general characteristics include:

Characteristics of Romanticism

  • Individualism and Subjectivism: The self, feelings, and emotions are prioritized above all else.
  • Freedom: A passion for freedom is reflected in all aspects of the period, from politics to artistic creation.
  • Nationalism: Popular and national values of each country are exalted.

Themes of Romantic Literature

The most characteristic themes of Romantic literature are:

  • Personal Feelings: The author’s own emotions and experiences are central.
  • Escapism: A desire to escape from reality and explore imaginative realms.
  • Nature and Landscape: The beauty and power of nature are emphasized.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1837-1870)

Bécquer was a Romantic poet who lived a life marked by poverty and poor health. Orphaned at a young age, he lived modestly, relying on his contributions to magazines. Bécquer composed his rhymes using assonant verses and employed suggestive language (sleep, sigh, murmur) to evoke transitional realities. His most notable works include Legends (fantastic tales) and Rhymes (84 short poems).

Poetry in Transit to the 20th Century

In the late 19th century, literature and art challenged the conservative, bourgeois, and materialistic society. Literature reflected the moods and emotions of the authors. Modernism emerged as a significant movement, focusing on the renewal of poetry. Modernist poetry employed lyrical language, phonetic contrasts, and symbolic meanings. Moods and emotions were expressed through images and symbols.

Principal Authors of Modernist Poetry

  • Rubén Darío
  • Ramón del Valle-Inclán
  • Juan Ramón Jiménez
  • Antonio Machado

Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

Machado came from a family of intellectuals and worked as a translator in Paris. His poetry, which he described as “grounded in time,” achieved lyrical intensity with minimal resources. It prioritized authenticity of feeling and emotion over superficial beauty. His most important work was Solitudes.

Symbols in Solitudes

  • Afternoon: Represents the two forces battling within the human heart. Machado sees his own soul reflected in the afternoon.
  • Galleries: Symbolize the recesses of the soul, memories, and introspection.
  • Ripe Fruits: Represent desires and illusions.
  • Road: Symbolizes the journey of life.
  • Dream: Represents consciousness and the realm of fantasy, both during sleep and wakefulness.

Machado aimed for objectivity in his poetry, focusing on the internal reality of the poet. While he observed real landscapes, he chose to highlight the harsh, poor, and melancholic aspects.

Meter and Rhyme in Machado’s Poetry

  • Rhyme: Machado frequently used assonance, often employing traditional forms like seguidillas, soleares, coplas, and romances. He also used rhyme in couplets, serventesios, quatrains, and sonnets, though with irregularities.
  • Verse Measure: His poems varied in length, from short tetrasyllabic verses to longer octosyllabic and 16-syllable lines. He often mixed verses of different lengths, creating a unique rhythm. The silva romance, with its single rhyme in paired lines, was a common form in his work.
  • Figures of Speech: Machado frequently used figures of speech like anaphora, metaphor, enumeration, repetition, parallelism, and personification.

Celestina

Celestina is a work of modern literature that departs from the medieval mindset and embraces humanistic comedy. It portrays bourgeois urban environments and a society driven by greed and lust. Written by Fernando de Rojas, a writer associated with the University of Salamanca and known for his extensive library of classic authors, the play revolves around the loves and hates of Melibea and Calisto, using dialogue-heavy language. Celestina, an elderly woman, manipulates events to bring Calisto and Melibea together, but the play ends tragically.

The Drama of the Baroque Period

During the 16th century, theater was a mass spectacle, offering audiences an escape from their problems. People from all social classes attended theatrical performances. The most successful genre was the new comedy, written in verse and divided into three acts, typically involving a love conflict between characters. Comedic elements were introduced through characters like the maid, who acted as a go-between for the lovers, and figures like the brother, father, or husband of the lady, representing societal norms. Lope de Vega was a leading figure in this genre.

Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega, author of over 500 works, revolutionized Spanish classical theater with his new comedy. While he explored various genres, he excelled in theater. His plays can be classified into:

Types of Plays by Lope de Vega

  • Historical Dramas: These plays dealt with historical events and social values.
  • Dramas of Honor Rivalry: These plays focused on themes of love, punishment, and revenge.
  • Legendary Dramas: These plays featured knights and princesses.
  • Comedy Palate: The Dog in the Manger is one of his most famous plays in this genre.

Text Types

Narrative

  • Purpose: To relate facts and actions, real or imaginary.
  • Characteristics: Use of past tense verbs, temporal connectors, and action verbs.
  • Examples: Novels, movies, stories.
  • Structure:
    • Initial Situation: Introduces the circumstances and main characters.
    • Node: The conflict develops, characters act, rivalries emerge, and intrigue builds.
    • Outcome: The plot is resolved, and a stable situation is reached.

Poetic or Rhetorical

  • Purpose: To express beauty through language.
  • Characteristics: Abundance of rhetorical figures, rigid structures (stanzas), rhyme (consonant or assonant).
  • Examples: Poems, riddles, proverbs, advertising.
  • Characteristics of Rhetorical Text:
    • Emphasis on Form: Structure, rhythm, and rhyme are important.
    • Connotative Character: Words suggest meanings beyond their literal sense.
    • Ambiguity: The text evokes emotions and feelings through suggestion.
    • Figures of Speech: Parallelism, metaphor, personification, etc. are used.

Descriptive

  • Purpose: To provide details and report on the state of things.
  • Characteristics: Use of adjectives, adverbs of place, present and imperfect tense verbs, and attributive phrases.
  • Examples: Dictionaries, advertising, directories.
  • Types of Descriptions:
    • Technical Descriptions: Objective, using concrete nouns, spatial connectors, adverbs of manner, and accurate information.
    • Literary Descriptions: Subjective, expressing feelings through adjectives, abstract nouns, comparisons, metaphors, vivid language, and literary figures.

Conversational

  • Purpose: To ask, promise, threaten, etc.
  • Characteristics: Simplified language, incomplete sentences, exclamatory and interrogative sentences.
  • Examples: Discussions, dialogues, debates, conferences.
  • Structure:
    • Opening: Usually begins with a greeting.
    • Core of Interaction: Defines the subject, purpose, tone, and relationship between participants.
    • Closure: Ends with linguistic or paralinguistic formulas.

Separation of Lexemes and Morphemes

Once we separate the lexemes (base words) from morphemes (meaningful units within words), words can be classified as:

  • Simple: Example: Interest
  • Derivative: Example: BR/il/on (stem, infix, suffix)
  • Composite: Word formed by combining two words. Example: short/feather
  • Parasynthetic: Word formed by a prefix, a lexeme, and a suffix, similar to a derivative, but without independent meaning for the prefix and lexeme or the stem and suffix. Example: In/demon/ado (prefix, stem, suffix)