Spanish Golden Age Literary Analysis: Themes and Features

Key Characteristics of Spanish Golden Age Literature

Features of the Book of Good Love (*Libro de buen amor*)

The book highlights aspects of character and popular minstrelsy. Features of the style include lively and popular speech, a variety of expressive resources, and realism. Specific characteristics include:

• Metric irregularities.
• Personality reflecting the harsh mountain people.
• The casualness and the comic elements.

Themes and Topics in Jorge Manrique's Verses

The overriding theme of Jorge Manrique's elegy, *Coplas por la muerte de su padre*, is a compliment to his father of the Order of Santiago. Manrique expresses a series of reflections on life, death, and the transience of worldly things, utilizing several key medieval and Christian topics:

• The transience of life.
• Life as a river (earthly life as a way to heavenly life).
• ***Ubi sunt*** (Where are they?).
• Death matches all.
• The life of fame and honor.

Garcilaso de la Vega: Renaissance Poetic Features

Garcilaso's works are characterized by Latin influence, Renaissance themes, and new poetic forms. Key topics and imagery include:

• ***Locus amoenus***: Mythical, beautiful, and stylish landscapes.
• Idealized Woman: Corresponding to a white face and pink complexion, white skin, blue eyes, long neck, and golden hair.
• Shepherd idealization of reality.
• ***Carpe diem***: Alludes to transience and invites the reader to enjoy life while possible.

San Juan de la Cruz (St. John of the Cross) and Mystical Lyric

The lyric poetry of San Juan de la Cruz seeks to express the soul's union with God, which mystics consider the highest state of love achievable in the world. This union is ineffable (cannot be expressed through words) and can only be transmitted through imperfect human comparison.

To convey this feeling, the poet uses deep symbolism, moving from the image to the symbol, allegory, and paradox. His three major works are:

• *Dark Night of the Soul*
• *Spiritual Canticle*
• *Living Flame of Love*

Cervantes' *Don Quixote*: Comparing Part I (1605) and Part II (1615)

Similarities

The work presents unity and coherence between the two parts, thanks mainly to the consistent focus on Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Differences Between the Two Parts

Part One (1605):

• Insertion of several accounts that disrupt the central action (e.g., character-sentimental, pastoral, psychological, Moorish, Italian imitation).
• The adventures weave with some autonomy (less relation to the main plot).
• Focus on facts and action.
• Don Quixote creates his fame by the mad and fanciful adventures and events that he imagines or produces.

Part Two (1615):

• The few episodes that are outside the central story (for example, the loves of Basilio and Quiteria) do not interrupt the principal action.
• There is greater interaction between episodes, and events predominate.
• Appears further dialogue, allowing the author to delve into the psychology and knowledge of the characters.
• The first part's publication means that characters in Part Two are already aware of Don Quixote and his adventures, widely disseminated since 1605.