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

Preromanticism and the Roots of Romanticism

Before talking about Romanticism, we must talk about Preromanticism. Authors emphasize figures like Rousseau, showing in his work a sensitivity analysis of the most important intimate aspects.

The Sturm und Drang Movement

Although there was a German movement called Sturm und Drang (Storm and Stress), it clearly marked the distance from 18th-century rationalism, choosing passion instead. The playwright Schiller is an example of Sturm und Drang, seeking intense works in his scenography. His traits include individualism, the sentimental explosion, and the defense of liberty, as seen in The Robbers and William Tell.

The Influence of Goethe

Another important German author is Goethe. In his first phase, coinciding...

Salvador Espriu: A Pillar of Catalan Literature

Salvador Espriu was a Catalan poet, playwright, and novelist. His work is characterized by a mixture of extreme intellectualism and a caustic descriptivism that possesses a unique singularity. With his idiomatic wealth, complex themes, and diverse sources, as well as his ability to describe transcendent themes within collective history, he is considered one of the most important figures in twentieth-century Catalan literature.

The Lyrical Cycle and Civic Discourse

In his first book of poetry, Cementiri de Sinera (Sinera Cemetery), Espriu evoked a world destroyed by war. The following four books—Les hores, Mrs. Death, El caminant i el mur, and Final del laberint—were called the lyrical cycle and...

19th Century Literary Movements and Key Authors

Early Literary Developments and Social Commentary

The narrative gathers recreated insights, spread throughout the literary life that is part of the ELA collective. Author Robert C.M. Robert, with a critical intent, confronts a nostalgic approach. He denounces the unreasonable, arbitrary, and dishonest behavior of society at the time. The Roberts belong to a street lineage, while others are rural. Urban contemporary realism brings us closer to reality.

Literary Stages and Prose Development

• Stage 1: Costumbrista Literature – Develops relationships with romance, offering a subjective vision of reality.
• Stage 2: Prose Development – Necessary for the evolution of prose. Emili Vilanova's elegy for a

Juan Ramón Jiménez: Life and Poetic Evolution

Born in Moguer in 1881, Juan Ramón Jiménez faced early hardships, including his father's death, which led to health struggles and admission to a Madrid sanatorium. Despite his limited social interactions, he was soon recognized as a great poet. Between 1905 and 1911, he lived at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid, where he met his future wife, Zenobia Camprubí, with whom he later traveled to New York.

Upon returning to Spain, his poetic work flourished, and he became a mentor to the younger generation. Although he lived a secluded life, his poetry grew increasingly intellectual, earning him fame as a solitary poet. Following the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, he and his wife fled to...

The Early Life of Miguel Hernández

Miguel Hernández was born into a modest family of livestock farmers on 30 October 1910 in Orihuela. He was part of a large family of seven siblings, though only four survived childhood.

During his adolescence, Hernández kept a secret from his father, who did not allow him to attend school beyond the age of fourteen. Miguel worked as a goat-herd, and his formal schooling was brief. After attending a private school for a few months, he continued his education at an institution for underprivileged children. At thirteen, thanks to his great intelligence, he earned a scholarship to a prestigious school, where he met Luis Almarcha, who would become his protector and benefactor.

Despite having limited basic education,...

Mester de Clerecía: Definition and Origins

The Mester de Clerecía refers to the office of the clergyman as a form of poetic composition. It emerged in the 13th century and reached its peak in the 14th century, coinciding with an improved economy and a growing interest in culture. In this context, monasteries and the clergy—whose function was to teach and transmit culture—took on greater relevancia. Literature in this era acquired a didactic and moralizing meaning. The top representatives are Gonzalo de Berceo and Juan Ruiz.

Key Features of Mester de Clerecía

• Metric: They used the cuaderna vía (a stanza of four verses with the same consonant rhyme). The Alexandrine verse was used: a 14-syllable verse divided into two hemistichs by a caesura.

Spanish Theater of the 20th Century

Bourgeois Theater

The bourgeois theater is the genre par excellence, focusing on social customs and themes set in urban environments, aimed at the middle and upper-middle classes. It seeks a scenic realism that reflects everyday life.

• Jacinto Benavente: The Alien Nest, The Unloved, Lady Loves Saturday Night, Autumn Roses, The Vested Interests.

Theater in Verse

Heir to the romantic and modernist drama in language and character presentation, with echoes of the Golden Age. Its main theme was the historical drama.

• Eduardo Marquina: In Flanders, the Sun Has Set, The Daughters of the Cid.
• Francisco Villaespesa: The Castle of Pearls, Aben Humeya.
• Brothers Machado: La Lola is Going to Ports.

Comic Theater

This genre follows...

Culteranismo and Formal Complication in Baroque Poetry

Among the poetry of Garcilaso and Góngora, notable differences can be observed. There is a clear break between the Renaissance and Baroque periods. From the second half of the 17th century, new trends in poetry unfolded. Thus, the cultist poetics of Herrera, for example, led to the Culteranismo tendency, which became a dominant aesthetic in Spanish Baroque literature. These are strictly opposed movements that are part of a general aesthetic sensibility, pursuing originality and the admiration of the reader through wit. This breaks the form and equilibrium between classical postulates and the content of Renaissance aesthetics.

Conceptista writers explored the possibilities of language, deriving...

Garcilaso: Love Lyric and Pastoral Eclogues

Garcilaso: The dominant theme is the love lyric, with melancholic expression caused by the absence of the beloved. Nature is related to the topic through the locus amoenus, reflecting the poet's inner world. Other poems deal with subjects such as friendship, fate, or fortune. In his early Petrarchan-style poems one can see the influence of the poetry of Ausiàs March and the cancionero tradition. From 1532 Garcilaso increased his contact with Petrarchan poetry.

Garcilaso's Eclogues

In these lyrical compositions, shepherds voice complaints about love in idealized environments. Key eclogues include:

• Eclogue 1: Contains monologues of two shepherds, Nemoroso and Salicio, which deal with the pain of rejection

Medieval Literature

Medieval literature in the Iberian Peninsula begins with the appearance of the jarchas (lyric verses written in Mozarabic, mid-11th century) and lasts through the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. It flourished in a society dominated by religious and chivalric ideals, and structured into three estates: the nobility, the clergy and the peasants. Cities hosted a collective of artisans and merchants who laboured and coexisted with ethnic-religious communities: Jewish, Christian and Muslim. Political organization was fragile. In the 13th century, with the help of the Burgesses and the lesser nobility, the monarchy tried to strengthen its authority by adopting centralizing measures that provoked clashes with the nobles. Culture spread...