Notes, summaries, assignments, exams, and problems for Latin

Luis de Góngora: Culteranismo

Culteranismo, or Gongorism, was a poetic style that best captured the Renaissance heritage and idealized beauty. It transformed its subjects and exaggerated its rhetorical resources. Cultured poets used lyric poetry with strong formal contrasts, based on sensory perceptions and rhetorical devices. They endowed verse with beautiful and harmonic expression, offering a vision of the world and thus beautifying reality, escaping it, and trying to create perfect, artificial worlds.

Characteristics of Culteranismo

• The use of perfect lines and stanzas achieves great musicality.
• A masterful treatment of metaphor.
• Cultisms (poetic transformation of rhythmic sound).
• Heightening of mythological themes.
• Significant syntactic complication

Castilian: A Romance Language

Castilian is a Romance language derived from Vulgar Latin and enriched with contributions from other dialects and languages. Since its inception, it tended to innovate, distinguishing it from other Iberian languages. Castilian emerged in the north of the peninsula and spread during the Reconquista. Alfonso X greatly contributed to Castilian through linguistic leveling, fixing spelling, and the development of Castilian prose. The invention of printing, the publication of Nebrija's Grammar of the Spanish Language, and the discovery of America expanded Castilian's reach.

Royal Spanish Academy

A growing interest in linguistics and language purity is reflected in the foundation of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) in 1714.... Continue reading "Castilian Language: History, Dialects, and Modern Usage" »

Miguel de Cervantes: Literary Works

• Author of the pastoral novel La Galatea.
• Significant poetic contributions.
• Composed 10 plays, including The Siege of Numantia.
• Authored 12 short novels, known as the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels).
• At the end of his life, he published the Byzantine novel The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda (1617).
• His lasting fame rests primarily on his single greatest work: The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Analysis of Don Quixote

Purpose

• The primary purpose was to criticize and satirize the novels of chivalry.

Plot and Structure

Part I: The First and Second Outings

• An old gentleman, driven mad by reading chivalric novels, decides to become a knight-errant.
• He receives knighthood in an inn he mistakes for a castle,

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... Continue reading "Spanish Baroque Drama: Venues, Spectacle, and Lope de Vega's New Comedy" »

Modernism in Spanish Literature

Modernism originated in Latin America with José Martí and Rubén Darío, who eventually brought the movement to Spain. It served as a reaction against realism, naturalism, and positivism. Key features include a rejection of traditional rules, the worship of beauty, and a focus on art for minorities.

Aesthetic Principles and Themes

Modernism sought reform and novelty, defending freedom and originality through various European currents:

• Neoromanticism: Bohemian reflection.
• Parnassianism: A return to clarity and form.
• Symbolism: Idealism and mystery.
• Spanish Middle Ages: A model of inspiration.

Themes often include fantasy worlds, exotic and oriental settings, and Greco-Roman mythology (nymphs and gods). Sensuality and... Continue reading "Spanish Modernism and the Generation of 98 Literature" »

Mythological Origins of the Trojan War

The Trojan War, from a mythological viewpoint, began with the abduction of Helen, wife of Menelaus, King of Sparta. Her abductor, Paris, son of the King of Troy, was madly in love with Helen. She had been promised to the Trojan prince by Aphrodite, after he proclaimed her the most beautiful of the immortal goddesses.

Menelaus, the outraged husband, summoned his allies and attacked Troy. Other Greek leaders and Achaeans, who had been suitors of Helen, had pledged an oath to defend Menelaus's honor if it were ever offended.

Historical Context of the Trojan War

From a historical viewpoint, the conflict's primary source was commercial and economic. Greece (specifically Argolis) was located in a region characterized... Continue reading "Unraveling the Trojan War: Causes, Heroes, and Mythology" »

Dramatic Subgenres and Discourse Types

Tragicomedy

Mixing elements of tragedy and comedy. Its characters belong to the nobility and common people, and the action does not result in catastrophe. Its style is varied.

Other Dramatic Subgenres

• Auto Sacramental: A short piece related to the sacrament of the Eucharist. Linked to liturgical feasts, it develops scriptures and lives of saints.
• Loa: A pamphlet, generally humorous, featuring popular characters. It represented the beginning or middle of a long piece, whose argument was not always connected with it. The most famous examples are those of Miguel de Cervantes.
• Farce: Short comic pieces found on the fringes of festivities and religious representations.
• Sainete: Known by this name since the eighteenth

Romanticism in Spain: Key Characteristics and Literary Stages

Romanticism was a profound social and artistic movement spanning the first half of the 19th century. Its central purpose was asserting the right to liberty, understood both individually and collectively. In Europe, its development, particularly later in Spain during the reign of Ferdinand VII, allowed artists to express their ideology freely, disregarding classical rules.

Passion replaced reason, and artistic works became subjective. Romantic works are characterized by a mixture of genres, the combination of verse and prose, and the use of different metrical structures within a single poem.

Core Themes of Spanish Romanticism

• Feelings and Emotions: The primary theme is the intense expression

Antonio Machado: Biography

Born in Seville in 1875, Antonio Machado moved to Madrid. He attended the Institución Libre de Enseñanza starting in 1889. He first traveled to Paris, where he met Symbolist poets. In 1907, he published his first book, Soledades, Galerías y Otros Poemas. He moved to Soria, where he met Leonor Izquierdo; they married two years later. In 1912, he published his second major work, Campos de Castilla. That same year, his wife died, and he fell into a depression. Afterward, he went to Jaén, where he lived with his mother. His final poetic work was titled Nuevas Canciones. He died in France in 1939.

First Poetic Stage

Symbolist Poetry and Art Nouveau

Key Aspects:

• Work: Soledades, Galerías y Otros Poemas
• Themes and Purpose:

Modernism

Modernism, a poetic movement, was introduced by Rubén Darío, heavily influenced by the French Symbolists, including Verlaine and Mallarmé.

Rubén Darío came to Spain as an American delegate during the Colombian centenary celebrations. By this time, he had achieved success with his poetry collection, Azul. After living in Paris, where he was influenced by symbolist writers, he adapted their styles to Castilian. He wrote Prosas Profanas. Upon his return to Spain in 1899, he was already considered a master by young Spanish writers, who were captivated by the magical sound of his verse.

Rubén Darío sparked a genuine renewal in Spanish literature, incorporating symbolic forms, contrasting with the realistic art of the Restoration writers,... Continue reading "Spanish Modernism: Literary Movements and Influences" »