17th Century Spanish Poetry and Prose: Culteranismo and Conceptismo

17th Century Poetry and Prose

1. Conceptismo and Culteranismo

Conceptismo and Culteranismo are underlied by a deep vital skepticism that causes a flight in two different directions. Both strands break the balance of the Renaissance and attend to Baroque literary artifice and difficulty.

• Culteranismo: Represented by Luis de Góngora, it seeks to create a literate poetic language itself. It tends to formal beauty, brilliance of color, and sensory experience. It achieves this through the careful development of language and the abundance of resources (bold metaphors, hyperbaton, etc.).
• Conceptismo: Represented by Francisco de Quevedo, it tends to be concise and expressively dense, and to find wit and ingenuity. It uses ellipsis, paradoxes, word games, and associations.

2. Poetry

Metrics

The metrics belong to the Italian tradition: pentameter verse, the real octave, etc. Along with Italian forms, there is an abundance of compositions written in the learned Spanish metric: quatrains, for mocking satirical verses. At this time, the pattern of a stanza that has great success is set: the décima or espinela. Popular lyrical forms will be revitalized: ballads, carols, etc.

Topics

• Romantic or sentimental poetry
• Poetry of moral and metaphysical nature
• Religious poetry
• Satirical-burlesque poetry

Luis de Góngora

His literary work is poetic.

Letrillas and Romances

His letrillas and romancillos are of great variety of themes, have vitality, beauty, grace, etc. They cover a great variety of themes: love, religion, myths, etc.

Sonnets

The poet wants to create a poetic language and achieve full verbal beauty. He uses violent hyperbaton, metaphors, antithesis, etc. It is difficult to read.

Major Poems

Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea and The Solitudes.

Quevedo

Poetry

He has a masterful and absolute command of the language and all its poetic resources. His expressive richness and variety of themes make him one of the most relevant Spanish lyric poets of all time. His poetry is classified as:

• Loving: Falls within the conventions of the time.
• Metaphysics: Vital issues such as anxiety, disappointment, resignation, etc.
• Satirical: Has no equal in our satirical poetry. Displays: socialites of the 17th century, writers and literary issues, myths, historical figures, literary characters, and heroes.