Baroque Period: History, Art, and Literature

The Baroque Period

A historic and cultural period immediately following the Renaissance, which continued and completed its artistic renewal.

Historical and Social Context

• Economic crisis
• Spanish decline
• Emigration to America
• New mysticism and religious meaning

Baroque Characteristics

Baroque literature adopted and repeated Renaissance themes, but instead of using them for pleasure or conviction, it emptied them of content and presented them as deception or illusion, like a reflection in a mirror. This reflected a loss of faith in humanity and a devaluation of the world.

Ideology and Attitudes

1. Confrontation, rebellion, and nonconformity, visible in political and moral spheres.
2. Evasion through content inherited from the Renaissance and easily recognizable forms of beauty.
3. Conformity and coexistence with the prevailing situation, often depicted in theater.

A third attitude combined the brilliance, idealism, and tendency towards pleasure and enjoyment of the first, with the misery, picaresque elements, and ascetic piety of the second.

Literary Aesthetics

Key Themes of the Baroque:

• Epic, romantic, and mythological
• Religious, moral, and political
• Picaresque and satirical
• Historical or legendary

Baroque writers primarily sought originality, creative individuality, and rhetorical surprise:

• Intricate language designed to surprise through its difficulty.
• Ingenuity to transcend the commonplace.
• Devices that surpass or transform conventional beauty.

Conceptism and Culteranismo

The pursuit of originality and the personal rivalry between writers like Góngora and Quevedo were crucial in distinguishing two main trends within the Baroque style: Conceptism (associated with Quevedo and his followers) and Culteranismo (associated with Góngora and his school).

Traditionally, they have been defined as follows:

1. Conceptism focused more on content and employed rhetorical figures of thought.
2. Culteranismo prioritized beauty and expression of form, sometimes obscuring content, and utilized sensory metaphors.