Spanish Golden Age Literature: Renaissance to Baroque Styles

The Renaissance: Ideals and Cultural Periods

The Renaissance was a European movement that applied the ideals disseminated by the humanists to distinguish two cultural periods. These periods roughly correspond to the first and second halves of the sixteenth century.

First Rebirth (Early Renaissance)

• Metric Innovation: Beginning around 1526, adopting a new metric based on forms such as the sonnet, the tercets, the octava real, and the lira.
• Aesthetic Ideal: The aesthetic ideal lies in ease and the absence of affectation. Garcilaso de la Vega is the most representative author of this time.
• Themes: The primary theme is love, rooted in a deep Petrarchan lyrical tone. It is a personal feeling, often featuring nature, and shows a noticeable taste for mythological subjects.

Mannerism (Second Renaissance)

In Mannerism, the style becomes more thoughtful and artificial. Fernando de Herrera, San Juan de la Cruz, and Fray Luis de León represent these trends. The variety of tone is higher, and a wider range of stylistic resources is applied. The first works of Lope de Vega or Góngora would be framed within Mannerism.

These stages develop the same central theme: the theme of carpe diem.

Key Figures of the Baroque Era

Francisco de Quevedo

Quevedo is a poet, a mocking critic, and a ruthless observer. He was deeply concerned about the problems of his time. He was capable of the most atrocious mockery alongside the highest sense of the harshest criticism and profound reflection.

Poetic Works of Quevedo

His poetry is one of the most dense and surprising of the century. It was published posthumously in 1648 under the title Parnassus Español. It collects political, philosophical, loving, and highly burlesque poems. He had a very Baroque attitude; his topics include the everyday and the theme of memento mori.

Luis de Góngora

Classification of Góngora's Works

• Juvenile Poetry: Letrillas, ballads, and sonnets.
• Adult Poetry: Fable of Pyramus and Thisbe, Panegyric to the Duke of Lerma, Solitudes, and Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea.

Solitudes (Soledades)

The work remained unfinished. It tells the story of a pilgrim across four ages, but only Solitude I was completed. This poem is composed of silvas.

Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea

This work recounts the story of the Cyclops Polyphemus, who falls in love with the young Galatea, who despises him because she loves the shepherd Acis.

Góngora wrote sonnets of exceptional aesthetic quality on a variety of topics, often featuring the theme of carpe diem.

Style and Culteranismo

Critics often distinguish two periods in Góngora's work: The first, Mannerist, includes poems and short meters dealing with light issues; the second, full of artificial difficulties, represents the highest elevation of Culteranismo.