Medieval Literature: Origins and Characteristics of Peninsular Poetry

Medieval Literature

The earliest literary creations include the Jarchas, while Portuguese and Galician poetry flourished through popular and educated forms, such as the cantigas de amigo and cantigas de amor. Epic poetry and the mester de juglaría complete the peninsular landscape.

Alfonso X, the Wise, is credited as the creator of Castilian prose, which achieved literary status in the 14th century with works like El Conde Lucanor by Don Juan Manuel. Parallel to this, the picaresque tradition finds its roots in works like Lazarillo de Tormes. Theater samples are rare, with the Auto de los Reyes Magos being the only significant preserved work.

Medieval Poetry Classifications

• Anonymous Folk/Collective: Characterized by a continuous process of collective recreation and oral transmission.
• Individual/Educated: Features a known author and is primarily written.

Both forms manifest lyrical expressions of intimate feelings, whereas narrative poetry recounts events external to the author's subjectivity.

Traditional Popular Lyric

• Jarchas: Mozarabic origins.
• Cantigas de Amigo: Galician-Portuguese origins.
• Villancicos: Castilian origins.

These are short ditties traditionally sung by a woman in love. Due to oral transmission, exact dates of creation remain unknown. Common themes include a woman lamenting the absence of her beloved, often confiding in her mother or sisters.

Types of Villancicos

• Albas: Songs about parting or meeting the beloved at dawn.
• Mayas: Celebrating the arrival of spring.
• Sailing Songs: Sung by guards in castles.
• Work Songs: Sung by peasants during labor.
• Travel Songs: Sung by travelers to make mountain journeys more enjoyable.

Metrics and Structure

Metric Characteristics

• Jarchas and Villancicos: Irregular and imprecise metrics, typically 2, 3, or 4 verses with varied rhyme.
• Cantigas de Amigo: Regular and precise metrics with consistent rhyme.

Structural Composition

Cantigas de amigo are composed of stanzas that adopt a parallel structure. The original form of jarchas and villancicos is simple, consisting of 2 or 4 lines. Later, writers added several educated stanzas known as glosses.

In jarchas, the gloss is a poetic composition that takes the form of a muwassaha or zejel. The jarcha appears in the final stanza of the structural core of the muwassaha. Villancicos feature the gloss at the end of the composition, maintaining a parallelistic structure.