Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and exercises for Latin for Baccalaureate

Garcilaso de la Vega (Toledo)

Served King Charles I. Exiled to an island in the Danube, then Naples. Influenced by Italian poets. Died at 35.

Themes:

• Love, sadness for the absent beloved
• Nature, locus amoenus
• Friendship, fate, fortune

Style:

• Early: Petrarchan, Ausias March influence
• Later: Increased Petrarchan influence
• Epithets, metaphors, personifications, hyperbatons

Fray Luis de León (Cuenca)

Augustinian Order, University of Salamanca professor. Imprisoned for 5 years.

Works:

• Original Poetica: 23 poems, mostly liras. Moral and religious themes. Influenced by Horace, Virgil, biblical texts.
• Prose: Humanist and Augustinian values. Exposition of Song of Songs, Exhibition of the Book of Job.

San Juan de la Cruz (Ávila)

Studied at University of Salamanca,...

The Evolution of Languages in Spain

Official and Co-official Languages

The constitution establishes Castilian (Spanish) as the official language of Spain. Galician, Basque, Catalan, and Valencian are recognized as co-official languages in their respective regions.

Linguistic Diversity

Linguistically, there are varieties that are not considered languages, such as Asturian and Aranese.

Historical Language Formation

The most widespread languages in ancient times were Iberian, Celtic, and Basque. Other languages like Tartessian were spoken in the south. Phoenician, Greek, and Carthaginian were established on the coasts. These pre-Roman languages eventually disappeared, but some terms reached the current Castilian.

Romanization and Romance Languages

During...

Spanish Poetry: Late 1970s Trends and Style

On the multiplicity of the final years of the 70s, continuing trends among critics highlight:

• The avant-garde and surrealism trends;
• The trend towards neo-modernism;
• Culturalism;
• Classicism;
• Another trend is the baroque, exemplified by Antonio Carvajal.

With these new trends in poetry, there is a shift towards a poetry that gives entry to privacy and maintains the theme of emotion. Urban and everyday life themes are maintained, becoming a source of autobiographical content. The tone of the poems uses colloquial language, is loaded with a lexicon of modern life, and allows for an ironic distancing from reality. Free verse is still used, as is a return to classical metrical forms.

The Eighties and Nineties:

Great Poets of the 15th Century

Marqués de Santillana

Marqués de Santillana was the most powerful feudal lord of his era. He embodied the values and virtues that represent the courtly cult, engaging in war activities and reading classics. Of great interest is his light poetry. He excelled in grace and musicality with a refined spirit of the Renaissance. His works place him among the best poets of the 15th century.

Juan de Mena

Juan de Mena is the most important writer of high art. He is the author of Labyrinth of Fortune or The Three Hundred, a work of Dantean allegorical inspiration written in dodecasyllables.

Jorge Manrique

Jorge Manrique conjugated weapons and letters in his life. He belonged to a noble family, and his life was known only for...

Theater of the Baroque: Styles and Venues

Religious Theater: Autos Sacramentales

Religious theater is manifested through the Autos Sacramentales (mystery plays), short pieces in one act, which presented abstract figures in religious allegory. These plays primarily treated the theme of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion, and featured a conflict between good and evil, usually personified by the Devil. The conflict was resolved with the triumph of the former.

The plays were represented around the feast of Corpus Christi, outdoors in front of the church. The stages, often built on decorated carts (carros), featured elaborate decoration and special effects. This type of theater was closely related to the Counter-Reformation, as it was the most suitable...

Juan Ramón Jiménez
The life and work of JRJ will form part of our Noucentisme Gde1914.
Your personality: he was egocentric and hypersensitive. He sought solitude, reflection, and a quiet life.
From a young age, he knew that his fate was indisputably linked to poetry, to the relentless pursuit of beauty and knowledge through words. JRJ always believed poetry was a minority genre due to the difficulty of language. His work is not as easy to read; its conceptual density grows and becomes inscrutable as it progresses.
Poetic Path
There are several Juan Ramón Jiménezs that correspond to different evolutionary phases of his writing.

1. The Sensitive Period (1986-1915)

Obsession with death inspired his best poetry; he tried to shoo it away with...

Stages of Spanish Renaissance Poetry

Stage 1: This stage occurred under the reign of Charles I. There was a predominance of the cancioneril lyric, which was dominated by ballads, traditional poems, and, above all, songbooks. The most famous of these compilations was the Cancionero General. This poetry was influenced by Petrarchan trends and classical styles. The most prominent poet of this era was Garcilaso de la Vega.

Stage 2: With the change of reign to Philip II, many changes occurred with respect to the previous period due to the Counter-Reformation. There was a boom in spiritual literature influenced by biblical, classical, and Italian sources. The predominant themes were moral or mystic.

Religious and Spiritual Poetry

In religious poetry,...

Literary Devices and Rhetorical Figures

• Synonyms: A sequence of continuous or near synonyms.
• Synesthesia: The union of two realities or characteristics perceived by different senses.
• Metonymy: The designation of a reality using the name of another that has a relation of proximity or contact.
• Symbols: A word or expression that refers to another reality, often spiritual, deeper, and difficult to define.
• Hyperbole: Excessive exaggeration.
• Litotes: The adequacy of meaning, sometimes achieved by denying the opposite of what one wants to admit.
• Synecdoche: The use of the name of a part for the whole, or vice versa, or the name of the container for the content.
• Personification: The attribution of human qualities to inanimate or irrational objects.
• Antithesis:

FGL: Fuentevaqueros in 1898

Studied law, philosophy, and music. In 1919, he moved to Madrid, establishing relationships with prominent writers, poets, and artists of his generation. He was a NY Fellow in 1929-30.

In 1932, he founded La Barraca, a university theater company that brought classic and contemporary plays to the pueblos. He was assassinated in 1936.

Double-edged personality: Overwhelming charisma and vitality juxtaposed with intimate discomfort and the pain of living.

Poetics

• His attitude is very strict.
• Poetry where passion and perfection, the human and the aesthetic, coexist in a rare purity.
• Popular and cultured elements are intertwined.

Literary Works

First Book: Book of Poems (1921)

• Influenced by Bécquer and Machado, modernism.
• Themes:

Medieval Literary Genres in Spain

Lyric Poetry

Two trends characterized lyric poetry in medieval Spain:

• Traditional Lyric: Short poems focused on love affairs.
• Cultured Lyric: Encompassed three forms: cancionero, love poetry, and moral and satirical reflections on life and politics.

Narrative Poetry: Two Schools

• Mester de Juglaría (Minstrelsy): Featured epic poems and heroic narratives in versos de arte mayor.
• Mester de Clerecía (Clergy): Explored religious themes and the lives of saints in measured and rhymed verses, exemplified by works like the Book of Good Love and the Miracles of Our Lady.

Theater

• Religious Theater: Depicted scenes from Christ's life, such as his birth or crucifixion.
• Profane Theater: Included pastoral and romantic representations.