Medieval Spanish Literature: Lyric, Clergy, and Theater

Posted on Mar 13, 2025 in Latin

Medieval Spanish Literature

Traditional Lyric (S. XIII-XIV)

  • Jarchas (S. XI-XIV): Short poetic compositions in Mozarabic, included at the end of Muwashshahs.
  • Predominantly four lines.
  • A girl expresses her feelings of love for her beloved (habib).
  • Confidantes are the mother and sisters.
  • Cantigas de Amigo (S. XIII-XIV): Galician-Portuguese, with the theme of love in a female voice.
  • The confidante is the mother, sisters, and elements of nature.
  • The oldest ballads date back to the 12th century.
  • Two versification styles: stanzas of four or more lines with refrains.
  • Villancicos (Castilian, XV century): Emotions and ideas are expressed delicately and expressively.
  • Stylized and artistic manifestation of the lower strata of a still rural and traditional society, showing a different conception of reality from the dominant classes.

Cultured Lyric – Mester de Clerecía

  • Concern for form.
  • Cuaderna Vía (four-line stanzas).
  • Themes from previous written tradition.
  • Didactic purpose.
  • Monorhyme stanzas of four 14-syllable verses with a strong caesura.
  • Usually religious themes, but also poems or fictional historical content.

Authors:

  1. Gonzalo de Berceo (S. XIII): Miracles of Our Lady
    • Collection of 25 miracles.
    • Didactic intent.
    • Theme: benefits brought by the Virgin Mary.
    • All miracles have the same structure.
    • Presence of the author.
    • Simple style.
  2. Arcipreste de Hita (XIV century): The Book of Good Love
    • Variety and diversity: autobiographical narrative, a collection of stories, didactic digressions, allegorical episodes, and lyrical compositions.
    • Varied characters, including the figure of Trotaconventos.
    • Worshipful and popular style.
    • Reflection of his era: the crisis of the 14th century.
    • Ambiguous intent.

Theater (S. XIII-XIV)

  • Theater in Latin: Elegiac comedies, such as the Pamphilus.
  • Influences: The Book of Good Love.
  • Theater in Castilian: Religious origin.
  • Tropes: Fragments of sung dialogue from Mass.
  • Liturgical Dramas: Full liturgical dramas.
  • Fragments broken off from the ceremony of the Mass (characters on the altar).

Sacred Drama:

  • Religious issue unrelated directly to the liturgy.
  • Auto of the Magi (S. XIII):
    • 147 verses.
    • Polymetry.
    • Theme: Journey of the Magi to worship the God-child (Ordo Stellae).

S. XV: End of the Middle Ages and the Beginning of Humanism

  • Crisis of values, leading to two literary themes:
  • Love:
    • Poetry in songs (courtly love).
    • Popular lyric: songs of friends.
    • Romances:
      • Verses of eight syllables rhyming in assonance in pairs.
      • Style: essentiality and fragmentation.
      • Abundance of dialogues.
      • Descriptions.
      • Update of events in the eyes of the listener.
      • Use of alliteration, repetition, parallelism.
      • Lack of moralizing.
    • Prose Fiction:
      • Tales of chivalry, sentimental novels.
  • Death:
    • Dances of Death: Macabre vision.
    • Verses on the Death of his Father: Christian version.
    • Item: meditation on death and the transience of life.
    • Literary genre: Elegy.
    • Structure: three parts.
    • Three lives: the earthly, the fame, and the eternal.
    • Three deaths: death in the abstract, historical death, individual death.
    • Style: simplicity, sententiousness.
    • The author invites the reader to participate in reflection.
    • Use of anaphora, rhetorical questions, allegory.
    • Moralizing intention.
    • Modernity: expression mastering the flow of time.

Other Themes:

  • Awareness of the unconsciousness of things of this world.
  • The passage of time.
  • Fame and fortune.
  • La Celestina:
    • 1 (illicit love) and 2 (tragic fate).
    • Two authors: Anonymous author (Act 1), Fernando de Rojas (rest).
    • Literary genre: Drama (humanistic comedy).
    • Theme: Love and death (courtly love lyric, leading to death).
    • Structure: 21 acts divided into 3 parts: plot approach, Celestina’s reverie and posterior death, wing-loving passion, and death of the lovers.
    • Characters: descriptive psychological realism, perspectivism.
    • Theatrical resources: stage directions, asides, simultaneous scenes, dialogues.
    • Flexible treatment of space and time.
    • Language: serves to characterize the characters: worship language (God), slang (servants).
    • Moralizing intention.
Other Topics:
  • Egoism.
  • Conflict between master and servants.
  • The mafia.