Baroque Literature: 17th Century Prose and Poetry in Spain

Baroque Prose: 17th Century Narrative Styles

The 17th century saw a decline in Renaissance narrative styles. Baroque prose is characterized by the establishment of the picaresque novel and the expression of a sensibility that could only be transmitted with an innovative, hard, and sharp style, resulting in novel ideas.

Picaresque Novel in the 17th Century: Mateo Alemán

• Born in Seville (1547), he graduated from high school but did not finish the medical studies he began. His various jobs, including that of a judge in the royal administration, did not solve the economic problems that led him to jail for debt. He traveled to America in 1608 and published Events of Fray Garcia, Archbishop of Mexico, in whose service he worked. Since 1612, nothing more was heard of him.
• His most famous work, First Part of the Life of the Rogue Guzmán de Alfarache, appeared in 1599. After being plagiarized, he published in 1604 the Second Part of the Life of Guzmán de Alfarache, Watchtower of Human Life, by Mateo Alemán, its true author.
• The work is told in the first person. Episodes of the protagonist's most significant life are interspersed with numerous moral reflections that contrast with the harshness of many of the protagonist's exploits. The narrator expresses regret and self-reproach.

The Novel of Ideas: Baltasar Gracián

• Born in Belmonte (1601-1658), near Calatayud. He was ordained in 1627 in the Society of Jesus. He published works under a pseudonym, without permission from his order, with whom he had conflicting relationships.
• Works: The Hero, The Politician, The Discreet, The Oracle, Manual and Art of Prudence, Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio... are brief and concise in style, with antithesis, ellipsis, and parallels.
• El Criticón is his best-known work. It appeared in three parts and presents an allegory of life: In the Spring of Childhood and the Summer of Youth (1651), In the Autumn of Mature Manhood (1653), and In the Winter of Old Age (1657).

The Baroque Lyric

Baroque lyric poetry reached a high level during this period. The formal perfection of the stanzas, either traditional, such as the romance, or introduced in the Renaissance, like the sonnet, which triumphed in the 16th century, was maintained. The subjects treated by the poets include Renaissance themes such as tempus fugit, carpe diem, love, post mortem, mythology, or mockingly treated seriously. Of course, the new Baroque era introduced themes such as disillusionment, pessimism towards old age and death, or Spanish decadence and corruption.

The language needed to be renewed. Baroque poets found two solutions that are not mutually exclusive: Culteranismo and Conceptismo, two new trends based on language and concept.

• Culteranismo: With Góngora, it intentionally obscures the text to hinder its comprehension through the use of Latinisms and altered syntax, with much hyperbaton.
• Conceptismo: Authors: Quevedo and Gracián.

The two expressive trends accumulate resources that move away from Renaissance naturalism: metaphor, antithesis, contrasts, dilogies, puns, etc., are figures that play with meanings and double meanings.