Characteristics of Medieval and Renaissance Spanish Literature

Mester de Juglaría

Poetry widely popular in the Middle Ages, spread by minstrels.

Mester de Clerecía

Medieval literature composed by the clergy (men who were not necessarily priests). They wrote on religious themes.

Milagros de Nuestra Señora

Principal work of Gonzalo de Berceo, a clergyman of the Monastery of San Millán. A compilation of exempla recounting 25 miracles of the Virgin Mary, written in cuaderna vía.

Don Juan Manuel (El Conde Lucanor)

Divided into 5 parts:

• Part 1: 50 exempla (stories) told by Patronio to Count Lucanor.
• Parts 2, 3, and 4: Various sections formed by a set of proverbs with progressively deeper meaning.
• Part 5: A doctrinal treatise on religious themes.

Poema de Mio Cid: Themes & Features

• Characters: Differs from French epics in the absence of supernatural elements, moderation in portraying the hero, and the relativity of his deeds.
• Themes: The recovery of the lost honor of the Knight of Vivar.

Poema de Mio Cid: Metrics

Each verse is divided into two hemistichs by a caesura.

Libro de Buen Amor (Juan Ruiz)

Plot Summary

The book chronicles a series of affairs involving the narrator. All share themes of love and deceit.

Themes and Structure

The book is composed of different heterogeneous materials, unified by the first-person narrative in the preface. It includes a series of affairs with different women, fables, and stories. The work abounds in irony, parody, and caricature.

Metrics

A poetic text of over 1700 stanzas, mostly in cuaderna vía. It features abundant 8-syllable hemistichs instead of the typical heptasyllables. Juan Ruiz demonstrates a strong command of metrics, rhetorical resources, and possesses a rich syntactic and lexical repertoire.

Alfonso X the Wise

King of Castile, he was very important in Spanish literature. He commissioned the collection of existing works and their translation or composition in Castilian.

Features of Renaissance Lyrics

• Love is the main theme in its poetry, showing clear traces of courtly love and Petrarchan tradition.
• Features include the lover's indifference to pain, oscillation between hope and despair, and the need for secrecy in love.
• It must combine courtesy, personal feelings, and literary rhetoric.
• Another significant theme is the prominence of Nature, which serves as the setting where characters lament their love grievances.