Medieval Spanish Literature: Genres and Origins

The Lyric

Popular Castilian lyric: Its preservation was possible because it was included in various songbooks of the period: palace songs, Cancionero de Upsala... These traditional compositions are simple in expression and have high density of beauty and lyricism. Its metric is irregular, with a tendency to verses of 6 and 8 syllables, its main theme is love.

One of the most popular compositions in lyric is the Christmas carol.

Romancero

Romances are one of the most appreciated literary manifestations of oral transmission of Spanish popular poetry. It is considered derived from the songs of gesta. Its serious form is rhyming verses of 8 with assonance in the even lines, being epic verse. Types of Romance: historical, border, thematic or Carolingian, Breton, romance novels, and lyrics. They blend narrative and dialogue and are characterized by expressive simplicity.

Learned Poetry or Court

In this century, there was a poem with a cultured air that was acquired in the palace court and received a double effect: from the troubadour poetry of Provençal verse, short and full of love, and the allegorical Italian Dantesca, resulting in long poems that develop lofty themes. Great learned poets like the Marquis of Santillana, Juan de Mena, Jorge Manrique, and Ausiàs March.

Prose

Amadis of Gaul

1492 is when the best and most famous version of the Castilian chivalry novel, Amadis of Gaul, was written. A work of unknown authorship, its written language is attractive and elegant, with a style far from convoluted. The genre stands out for its lyricism and also for the idealization of the love of its protagonists.

The Sentimental Novel

It is a subgenre of idealist narrative that triumphed in Spain between the 15th and mid-16th centuries. Sentimental passions of its characters predominate. It takes place in a courtly setting and follows the guidelines of courtly love.

Literary Clichés

These are themes repeated throughout the history of literature: carpe diem, collige, virgo, rosas, beatus ille, golden mean, locus amoenus, ubi sunt.

Origins of the Lyric

The Jarcha

These are short ditties from the 11th and 12th centuries written in Mozarabic and are the oldest manifestation of lyrical romance in our country. It is composed of few verses.

Galician-Portuguese Lyric

It gets the influence of cultured and courtly poetry in Provence, cultivated and developed in the 13th and 14th centuries. Its lyrical themes are: Cantigas de Amigo, ballads of love, and mocking and curse songs.

Popular Castilian Lyric

This lyric is akin to the Arabic-Andalusian and the Galician-Portuguese lyric, and songbooks formed by love, serranillas, wedding songs, May songs, etc. Some cultured poets reflected this poetry and took it as a source of inspiration for the realization of their works. These are characterized by brevity, suggestion, and the use of certain formulas of repetition, such as the chorus and parallelism.

Origins of Theater

The European theater of the Middle Ages comes framed in a religious context, in the rites of Christian worship, especially in and around the celebration of festivals like the birth and resurrection of Christ.

Origins of Epic

Spanish epic poetry is born with the chanson de geste, which recounts the exploits of the great medieval heroes. Its most important feature is the oral tradition; these poems were transmitted by juglares. The epics have the following characteristics: they are anonymous poems, are formed by extensive runs, the lines are long, were meant to be recited or sung, and the poems are quite true to life.

The Song of the Cid

This is the most important epic poem in our literature and the only one that, with about 4 thousand lines, has come almost complete. According to studies by Spanish philosopher and historian Ramón Menéndez Pidal (1868-1968), it was written in the 12th century by anonymous juglares from the land of Soria.

Content and Structure: This song is a literary or artistic work inspired by real events but mixes real elements with popular legends. Structure: song of exile, the wedding song, the song of the reproach of Corpes.

The Metric: The series or strip formed by verses of very different numbers that have the same assonance rhyme are irregular, between 10 or 20 syllables, with a predominance of 14, and are usually divided by a pause or cesura. Its language accommodates the need for a minstrel to recite their stories before an audience to maintain their attention. Its language is concerned and sober, austere, and vividly expressive, using linguistic resources of epic poems.