Medieval Spanish Poetry Forms and Themes

Medieval Spanish Poetic Forms

Jarchas

The Jarchas are short lyrical poems that often served as the conclusion to longer poems called muwassahas. They were composed in Arabic, Hebrew, or Mozarabic (Romance language written in Arabic script). A Jarcha can reach up to eight lines, but most commonly feature four or eight syllables in the main lines, rhyming with six-syllable lines and a concluding consonant rhyme. The central theme is love. The speaker often expresses the suffering of a girl in love to her mother, sisters, or friends within an urban setting. There is limited use of recozida (refrain) for expressive purposes.

Cantigas de Amigo

In the Cantigas de Amigo, the speaker also expresses love, typically directed toward their mother, sister, or friends. The primary theme revolves around the pain of absence or the death of their beloved, anxiety, and melancholy. Nature holds vital importance, with settings often including mountains, rivers, the sea, and meadows. These poems utilize poetic parallelism as a form of expressive refrain.

Villancicos

The theme of the Villancicos is also love. A young woman laments her situation, usually set in a rural environment. Characteristic features include the absence of adjectives and a dominance of diminutives, along with the use of parallelism.

Jorge Manrique: Verses on His Father's Death

This work consists of 40 stanzas, known as coplas manriqueñas, which are broken-foot verses. Structure: The poem comprises twelve lines with an 8-8-4 syllable pattern. The work is divided into two parts:

• Part 1 (General Character): Comprises the first 24 verses.
• Part 2: Exalts the figure of his father, listing his virtues.

The style is natural and highly innovative. It employs a humble style, making relevant use of common sayings. Metaphors and the literary tag ubi sunt? (Where are you? —wondering about the great figures of history) are prominently used.

Key Topics in Manrique's Work

1. Death: Death possesses equalizing power and is impossible to resist. Manrique presents death as a minister of God.
2. Fame and Eternal Life: Happiness in the Hereafter is attained by performing good deeds in life. Don Rodrigo, thanks to his good works during his earthly life, manages to overcome death and achieve everlasting life.

Cantar de Mio Cid

Level of the Story

The narrative focuses on two main objectives:

1. Recovery of Honor (Exile): The Cid is exiled by the king due to false accusations. Rodrigo performs a series of deeds that increase his fame and wealth, allowing him to retrieve his honor through a royal pardon.
2. Recovery of Honor (Family): The sons of the Cid, the Infantes de Carrión, abuse and abandon his daughters. The Cid achieves victory over the Infantes and arranges new, advantageous marriages for his daughters with the crown princes of Navarre and Aragon.

Level of Discourse

The poem presents an irregular metric. The verses are divided by a caesura into two hemistichs. The rhyme is assonant. Pleonasms are utilized as a form of expressive refrain, among other devices.

External Structure

1. Cantar de Exilio (Song of Exile)
2. Cantar de las Bodas (Song of the Weddings)
3. Cantar de la Afrenta de Corpes (Song of the Outrage of Corpes)

Mester de Clerecía

Flourished in the 13th century. Characteristics: These works are religious, narrative, or heroic in character, though they sometimes adopt a lyrical tone. They possess a moral or didactic intention. The authors express their erudition. They are written in verse with regular metrics, featuring the frequent use of the cuaderna vía (stanzas of four Alexandrine verses). They were spread orally by bards.