Spanish Golden Age Literary Masters: Góngora, Quevedo, Lope de Vega

Luis de Góngora

Góngora's work can be divided into traditional and Italianate minor poems, and major poems. He also wrote poems for other party elders.

Traditional Poems

• Romances: Dealing with diverse issues, these can be serious or farcical.
• Letrillas: These are compositions where the end of each verse is repeated as a refrain. The issues are often ludicrous, but religious themes are also present.

Italianate Poems

Sonnets

The theme of love, in line with Renaissance writers, appears in his sonnets. Later, sonnets with themes of disillusionment and poems of circumstance emerge.

Major Poems

• The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea: A mythological subject told in octaves.
• Soledades (Solitudes): A long poem in four parts. It is written in silvas, and its theme is the beauty of nature and its living beings.

Style

Góngora managed to create a specific poetic language, making use of learned words, vivid imagery, and rhetorical devices like hyperbaton.

Francisco de Quevedo

Prose Works

His work is extensive, but two stand out:

• Los Sueños (The Dreams): A satirical work, actually a set of five allegorical pieces.
• History of the Life of the Buscón, called Don Pablos (El Buscón): A picaresque novel that does not strictly follow the pattern of Lazarillo de Tormes or Guzmán de Alfarache. The novel presents a caricatured, distorted world, populated by dehumanized individuals acting without reflection.

Verse Works

His verse output is as abundant as his prose, and his compositions include profound moral or philosophical poems, and love poems.

• Moral and Philosophical Poems: Quevedo consistently displays a pessimistic vision, characteristic of a disillusioned Baroque man. Death and the brevity of life are issues that haunt him.
• Love Poems: These poems suggest that love is the only force capable of defeating death. Perhaps his most important sonnet is "Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera sombra" (To close my eyes the last shadow). This poem is considered among the finest ever written in the Castilian language.
• Burlesque Poems: These include poems ridiculing alchemists, Góngora, usurers, classical mythology, and the chivalric world.

Style

Quevedo, like Góngora, creates a distinct poetic language, but he works with different linguistic registers. He masterfully handles "Germania" (thieves' cant) and slang, alongside cultured, learned words and expressions.

Lope de Vega

Life and Biography

Born in Madrid in 1562, Lope de Vega had a stormy, adventurous life, full of scandals. He held numerous relationships with many women who appear as characters in his poems. All his adventures are reflected in his writing. He died in 1635. He is the most prolific author in Spanish literature.

Works

Lyric Poetry

Lope de Vega knew how to translate his experiences into his work, poeticizing all his loves. Among his poetic production, ballads and sonnets are particularly emphasized.

• Romances: Including pastoral, Moorish, or religious themes.
• Sonnets: His preferred metrical form. He explored his religious and romantic experiences through them. He also wrote sonnets on mythological themes, some in a mocking tone, or on matters of ancient history.

Epic Poetry

• Religious Themes: Isidro (narrates the story of Saint Isidore).
• Novelistic Themes: La Hermosura de Angélica (The Beauty of Angelica), a poem resembling a Byzantine novel.
• Burlesque: La Gatomaquia (The Cat-Battle), a mock-epic about a war between cats.
• Historical and Legendary Subjects: La Dragontea, concerning the life of the pirate Francis Drake.

Prose Works

His major prose work is La Dorotea. This fundamental work is autobiographical, reflecting his relationship with Elena Osorio. It is a novel in dialogue form.

Theater

He is attributed with around 1800 plays, of which about 500 are preserved. His enormous output is due to his great capacity to fictionalize the world around him. His works can be classified into three groups:

• Historical and Legendary Plays: Generally drawing from chronicles or ballads. Examples include Fuenteovejuna and The Knight of Olmedo.
• Religious Plays: These follow the tradition of 16th-century religious theater but adapt to Lope's new dramatic formula, including about 50 sacramental plays (autos sacramentales).
• Comedies of Manners (Comedias de Capa y Espada): These reflect Baroque society, depicting both courtly and urban/rural environments. An example is The Dog in the Manger (El Perro del Hortelano).