Literary Genres and Medieval Iberian Lyric Poetry

Classification of Literary Genres

Literary genres are categories of texts that share common characteristics in terms of content, form, themes, ideas, and the writer's attitude.

The Lyrical Genre

• Key Characteristic: Subjectivity.
• Function: Expressive or emotive function of language; the author expresses personal feelings, desires, and emotions.
• Classification:
  • Cultivated Lyric: Written transmission. Known writers.
    • Subgenres: ode, hymn, elegy, eclogue, epistle, satire, song, and fable.
  • Popular Lyric: Oral transmission. Anonymity.
    • Subgenres: carol, letrilla, lyrical romance.

The Narrative Genre

The expression of a story that happens to characters in a specific place and time. This story is explained by a narrator who guides the reader.

• Story Elements: Plot, theme, structure, types of narrator, and character types.
• Subgenres: Epic, epic poem, romance, novel, short story, myth, and legend.

The Dramatic Genre (Theater)

A genre intended for performance before an audience by actors portraying the characters in the story.

• Form: Dialogue (sometimes monologue) designed to be represented on stage.
• Conflict: The work develops a conflict that is represented by characters.
• Structure: Acts, pictures, and scenes.
• Subgenres: Tragedy, comedy, drama, farce, farce, and morality play.

Medieval Iberian Lyric Poetry

The Jarcha

The earliest vernacular literary texts written in Romance languages.

• A short ditty in which a woman laments the absence of her lover (referred to as "friend").
• Written in Mozarabic (a Romance dialect spoken in Al-Andalus).
• Found at the end of the muwassahas, which are longer poems written in classical Arabic or Hebrew.
• The oldest examples date from the late 10th or early 11th century, but they were not unveiled until 1948.

Galician-Portuguese Lyric

Emerged in the late 12th century in the northwestern Iberian Peninsula.

These poems are called cantigas and are classified into three main groups:

1. Cantigas de amigo: Poems spoken by a woman in love. She laments the absence or departure of her lover, whom she calls "friend."
2. Cantigas de amor: Love poems spoken by a man.
3. Cantigas de escarnio e maldizer (Ridicule and Curse): Satirical-burlesque poems. They attack or ridicule people and institutions, either directly or covertly.

Traditional Castilian Lyric

A collection of anonymous ditties sung in Castilla. They were transmitted orally, which led some to believe that this type of poetry never succeeded. However, the discovery of the Mozarabic jarchas confirmed the hypothesis of Menéndez Pidal, who argued for their existence.

Thematic Features:

According to their themes, they may be classified as:

• Work Songs (Sailing): Songs people sang to keep themselves awake while sailing.
• Celebration Songs: Used for weddings, births, etc.
• Endechas (Dirges): Funeral songs.
• Work Songs (Labor): Intended to make farm work more bearable.
• Mayas: Exalted the beginning of spring and the start of love.
• Love Songs: Stress the dawns, meetings, or separation of lovers at dawn.