Spanish Baroque Literature: Authors, Styles, and Works

The Literature of the Baroque

The Baroque was the cultural movement of the seventeenth century, the second of the Spanish Golden Age. In contrast to the Renaissance's desire for naturalness and harmony, the Baroque is the triumph of exaggeration and contrast. Against the optimism of the Renaissance, the Baroque is characterized by pessimism and disappointment. Both attitudes have their origin in the sense of decadence in the country. Baroque artists constantly reflect on death and time. The most important authors are:

• Poetry: Góngora and Quevedo
• Theatre: Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca
• Prose: Quevedo and Baltasar Gracián

Baroque Poetry

Formally, Baroque poetry is expressed in a lively style, far from the artifice and naturalness of the previous Renaissance century. As for the metric, it still uses the sonnet and other learned Italian verses. It also composed songs in a traditional style with simple language that contrasts with the complexity of the Baroque. The themes are love, religion, morality, and satire.

Quevedo

Born in Madrid and always lived in the Court, he was banished, and his last years were spent in jail. He died in Villanueva de los Infantes. He wrote The Searcher, a picaresque novel, and many books of didactic prose, among them The Dreams and From the Cradle to the Grave. In these works, he uses a conceptual style based on puns and antitheses. His poetry has three types: morality, love, and satire.

Conceptismo

Tends to be concise and find wit and ingenuity through the use of paradoxes, unusual associations, etc. Quevedo is the highest representative.

Culteranismo

Pursues beauty and expressiveness of the text using resources such as metaphors, cultisms, etc. This way, the literary language is far from the common language.

Góngora

Born in Córdoba, he became a priest. He was a poet characterized by the brilliance and complexity of his cultist style, but he also dominated the popular register. His two largest poems are: Solitudes and the Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea.

Enjambment

A mismatch that occurs when the meaning of a sentence is not complete in a verse and is completed in the next.

Hyperbaton

Changes the syntactic order of speech.

Baroque Theatre

• Poetic Decorum: Mixes comic and tragic events.
• Three-Act Plays: Variety of metrics.
• Breaking the rule of three unities.

Lope de Vega

Born in Madrid, his biography is full of scandals, both loving and religious. His works are characterized by:

• Dramas of Honor: The main theme is honor and dignity. Characters are able to sacrifice for it. The Knight of Olmedo, Fuenteovejuna, Peribáñez and the Commander of Ocaña.

• Sitcoms: Disputes arise from sentimental love with happy endings. The Dog in the Manger, The Foolish Lady. He also wrote The Arcadia and The Pilgrim in his Homeland.

Calderón de la Barca

The Phantom Lady, The Great Theater of the World, King Belshazzar's Feast, The Mayor of Zalamea, Life is a Dream.