Jorge Manrique: Coplas on the Death of His Father Analysis
Jorge Manrique and the Coplas on the Death of His Father
Work: Fits into the themes of courtly love and traditional poetic vocabulary.
- Mock-poetry: Reduced to three tracks of this kind of poetry from the fifteenth century.
- Moral poetry: The 40 songs are included in broken foot verse (coplas de pie quebrado).
Topics
- Death as a character: Manrique employs an allegorical character who comes in search of his father.
- Fame or memory: Refers to the footprint left by people in this world through their acts.
- Vanitas vanitatum: In the Middle Ages, it was believed that worldly things were worthless.
- Ubi sunt?: A topic of biblical origin used to express pain and nostalgia.
- Tempus fugit: The concept that the present does not exist and the future is constantly being transformed into the past.
- Planto: The mourning of the death of a loved one.
Structure
- Verses I-XII: Refers to earthly life.
- Verses XIV-XXIV: Refers to the life of fame.
- Verses XXV-XL: Focuses on eternal life.
Style
The artistic result of the verses stems from the perfect match between content and form. Characteristic features include:
- Verse: Use of the broken foot (pie quebrado).
- Tone: Sober tone through plain language.
- Rhetoric: Employment of rhetorical devices and explanatory adjectives.
Courtly Poetry (Cancionero)
This learned poetry, composed to be read, recited, or sung at court, is the most common characteristic of the fifteenth century. This courtly lyric has the following features:
- Wide variety of verses and themes.
- Artificial language.
- Cultivation of the arte mayor Castilian verse.
La Celestina: Characters
- Calisto: Falls in love with Melibea.
- Melibea: Finally falls for Calisto.
- Pleberio: Father of Melibea.
- Alisa: Mother of Melibea.
- Celestina: The central character who facilitates the union between Calisto and Melibea.
- Tristán and Sosia: Servants who seek money.
- Sempronio: Calisto's servant.
- Pármeno: Initially the faithful servant of Calisto.
- Elicia and Areúsa: Pupils of Celestina.
- Lucrecia: Melibea's maid.
- Centurio: A servant of Calisto.