17th-Century Spanish Literature: An Overview
17th-Century Poetry
Cultured lyric poetry explored romantic, mythological, moral, and philosophical themes, including the transience of life and death. Traditional and popular poetry found expression in compositions like carols and seguidillas. A notable development was the New Ballad (romance nuevo), written by educated poets on traditional themes such as historical and Moorish subjects.
Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627)
Born in Córdoba, Góngora held various ecclesiastical positions. In 1617,
Read MoreSpanish Realism: A Deep Dive into Literary Movement
Spanish Realism
Key Characteristics
- Targeting: Focuses on the bourgeoisie.
- Objectivity: Modeled on scientific observation.
- Style: Simple, clear prose reflecting characters’ social class.
- Social Critique: Exposes an opportunistic, greedy bourgeoisie and characters who fail nobly.
- Detailed Depiction: Descriptive fidelity focuses on environments and characters, aiming to replicate contemporary society, including middle and lower classes. Characters are analyzed through their temperaments, motivations, strengths,
Renaissance and Baroque Literature in Spain
POETRY IN THE RENAISSANCE
Epicurus
Time passes quickly (tempus fugit) and live the present moment (carpe diem).
STOICISM
Blessed is anyone who (beatus ille).
Neoplatonism
The feeling of love and nature (locus amoenus).
FEATURES Renaissance poetry
Love: Sometimes a source of frustration, sadness and other regenerative and purifying the spirit of man.
The nature of love relations framework, reflecting the world in harmony and balancing between, natural perfection.
Myths: Are taken as grounds thematic and resources
Read MoreThe Enlightenment in 18th Century Spain: Literature, Thought, and Reform
The eighteenth century is characterized as a period of profound changes affecting Tdos the scope of man and society. These were driven by ideological enlightenment movement focused on the pursuit of freedom, equality and brotherhood of human beings. During this century also called Age of Enlightenment reason predominates over other sources of knowledge as the local language school to revelation and trough it is looking for a new social organization that gets the happiness of citizens. It also attempts
Read MoreSpanish Literary Movements: Modernism, Generation of ’98, and ’27
Modernist Poetry
The beauty is the goal of Modernism; therefore, the lyric is the most widely used form. Metrics are renewed, as are style and themes.
Metrics and Style
There is an obsession with forms. The poet seeks the exact word, the perfect sound, refinement… wanting the poem to be perfect.
- Metric: Looking for musicality and rhythm. Ten-syllable and dodecasyllabic stanzas are used, recovering the Alexandrian. Rhyme is often acute.
- Style: High and refined. Many learned words and figures of speech
Spanish Narrative: A Journey Through Literary Styles and Trends
Spanish Narrative: 19th and 20th Centuries
Early to Mid-20th Century Realism
A third way to employ the always popular worship of nineteenth-century realism. However, existing safeguards to the task of facing reality have to look to the past. This happens with some mid-century novels by Zunzunegui or Ash Was Tree (between 1944 and 1957, his first three works), a trilogy—Ignacio Agustí—on the Catalan bourgeoisie.
The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942) by Cela, Javier Mariño (1943) by Gonzalo Torrente
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