Essential Literary Devices and Historical Themes

Literary Devices and Rhetorical Figures

• Synonyms: A sequence of continuous or near synonyms.
• Synesthesia: The union of two realities or characteristics perceived by different senses.
• Metonymy: The designation of a reality using the name of another that has a relation of proximity or contact.
• Symbols: A word or expression that refers to another reality, often spiritual, deeper, and difficult to define.
• Hyperbole: Excessive exaggeration.
• Litotes: The adequacy of meaning, sometimes achieved by denying the opposite of what one wants to admit.
• Synecdoche: The use of the name of a part for the whole, or vice versa, or the name of the container for the content.
• Personification: The attribution of human qualities to inanimate or irrational objects.
• Antithesis: The confrontation or opposition of two antonymous terms.
• Paradox: An expression of a thought that seems absurd or contradictory.
• Gradation: An enumeration in ascending or descending order.

Literary Topics

These are themes repeated throughout the history of literature.

• Carpe diem: Seize the present and enjoy the moment.
• Collige, virgo, rosas: A call for women to enjoy their youth before they grow old.
• Beatus ille: Contempt for material goods and praise of life away from social events.
• Golden mean: The advice to remain in the middle to avoid envy and live in peace.
• Locus amoenus: The description of a beautiful and ideal landscape.
• Ubi sunt?: The poet wonders about the whereabouts of those who have died.

Origins of the Lyric

• The Jarchas: Short songs from the 11th and 12th centuries written in Mozarabic; the oldest manifestation of lyrical romance in our country.
• Galician-Portuguese Lyric: Influenced by cultured and courtly poetry from Provence, developed between the 12th and 14th centuries.

Topics of Galician-Portuguese Lyric

• Cantigas de amigo: Loving, intimate poems.
• Cantigas de amor: Love poems written from a man's perspective.
• Cantigas de escarnio e maldecir: Satirical, festive, and burlesque poems.

Origins of the Theater

European medieval theater was framed within a religious context, specifically in the rites of Christian worship.

Origins of the Epic

Spanish epic poetry was born from epics recounting the exploits of great medieval heroes.

Characteristics of Epics

• Anonymous poems.
• Consist of large print runs (series of unequal lines with the same rhyme; when the rhyme changes, the section changes).
• Lines are long, irregular, and divided into two parts or hemistiches.
• Intended to be recited or sung.
• Faithful to the reality of the events they sing (e.g., Cantar de Mio Cid, Cantar de Roncesvalles).