Spanish Golden Age Poets: Góngora, Lope de Vega, Quevedo

Luis de Góngora: Poetic Works

The poetry of Góngora practiced minor art and Petrarchist poetry. He explored various subjects, treating them with a high approach or parody.

Minor Art Poetry

• Growing Moorish ballads, pastoral, historical, and burlesque.

Sonnets

• The theme is loving, inciting the Petrarchist line, though modified by the consciousness of time.
• Others are burlesque.
• A third group addresses disappointment and the transience of life.

Major Poems

• Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea
• Soledades

Lope de Vega: Poetic Works

Lope de Vega was a man of extraordinary creative capacity in narrative, theater, and literature.

Romances

Lope was one of the creators of the new romance. He developed Moorish, pastoral, and loving romances. In his old age, religious and moral romances stand out.

Petrarchist Poetry

Found in the collection of various texts that contain his "New Art of Writing Comedies."

Religious Poetry

His Sacred Rhymes collected sonnets and other poems of emotional devotion, confession of guilt, and regret.

Francisco de Quevedo: Poetic Themes

Love Poetry

It has its roots in the lyrical cancionero. Quevedo also develops well-known themes: the inaccessible beauty of the beloved, the suffering and crying of the lover. The poet recreates the passion of love through vivid imagery.

Metaphysical and Moral Poetry

Influenced by Christian morality and Stoic ideas, these poems evidence deep, distressed disillusionment. The author reflects on the transience and brevity of life. Quevedo censures the vices of his time and makes a fervent defense of virtue and eternal values.

Satirical and Burlesque Poetry

This poetry criticizes customs and human and social types of the era. Notable are the feminine types, often with a touch of misogyny inherent in satire. He also degrades classical myths, heroic poetry, Petrarchist, and Gongorine styles.

Religious Poetry

Themes of religious poetry often intertwine with moral poetry. One of the most important themes is repentance for sins.

Quevedo's Poetic Style

In his satirical and burlesque poetry, caricature abounds, designed to produce laughter.