Religious Poetry and Narrative in 16th Century Spain
Religious Poetry in 16th Century Spain
The mid-16th century, during the reign of Philip II, witnessed an extraordinary development of religious poetry in Spain. Ascetic literature offered guidance on achieving moral perfection, while mystical literature recounted the experiences of individuals who claimed to have found contact with divinity. The principal authors of this period were Fray Luis de Leon and San Juan de la Cruz.
Fray Luis de Leon (1527-1591)
Born in Cuenca in 1527, Fray Luis de Leon became
Read MoreGeneration of ’27: Key Authors and Works
Generation of ’27: Features
ITEM 15: Features of the Generation of ’27: Members work and publish together, pursuing aesthetic and stylistic perfection, uniting tradition and the avant-garde.
Poets of the Generation of ’27
Pedro Salinas
- 1st Stage: Omens, Sure Chance, Fable and Sign.
- 2nd Stage: The Voice Due to You, Love Reason, Long Sorrow.
- 3rd Stage: Everything Clearer and Other Poems, Trust.
- Essays: Jorge Manrique or Tradition and Originality, Rubén Darío’s Poetry, Spanish Literature. Twentieth Century,
Spanish Golden Age: Literature and Authors
The 16th Century: Two Major Stages
From 1511 to 1543, and from 1543 to 1580. New forms emerged, such as the sonnet, the Petrarchan song, trio chains, octava real, and the lira. The sources were the Petrarchan and classical traditions.
Lazarillo de Tormes
Lazarillo de Tormes is an anonymous Spanish novel, written in the first person. The oldest known edition dates back to 1554. This autobiographical work, presented as a letter, depicts the life of Lázaro de Tormes. It contains seven chapters and a
Read MoreFeatures of the Latin American Post-Boom Novel
The thematic, narrative, and stylistic features of The House of the Spirits can be included in the literary movement called the post-boom (generation of 1980), which followed the generation known as magical realism (1960s).
Literary Background
- The Novel: Combines fantastic elements of magic, folk beliefs, and supernatural or extraordinary events possible in reality. The Mexican author Juan Rulfo (1918-1986) anticipated magical realism in Pedro Páramo (1955).
- The Political Novel: Addresses social and
Modernism and Generation of ’98 in Spain & Latin America
Modernism and the Generation of ’98
In the period covering the last years of the 19th century and the early 20th century, several important authors and two movements are made available in Spain: Modernism and the Generation of ’98. For some, they are two distinct groups; for others, like Juan Ramón Jiménez, Modernism and the Generation of ’98 are the same thing and represent the response to the end-of-the-century crisis in Spain. They have elements in common as well as differences.
- Modernists prefer
Cancionero Poetry and Jorge Manrique in the 15th Century
Lyric Poetry and *Cancionero* Poetry
Cancionero poetry refers to all thematically diverse compositions belonging to poets associated with the court, collected in large anthologies (books that compile many texts by different authors: Songbooks).
Themes in *Cancionero* Poetry
The themes developed are:
- Love: Courtly love. The concept of love in the songbooks is consistent with the purest tradition of Provence (Southern France) and repeats the commonplaces of troubadour poetry: love as a service, the elusive