Spanish Literature: Middle Ages, Key Authors & Forms

Test Item 2 and 3: Medieval Spanish Literature

Jorge Manrique (Middle Ages)

• Metrical Foot: Used the *pie quebrado* (broken-foot) couplet stanza of six lines (8a, 8b, 4c, 8a, 8b, 4c), grouped in pairs.
• Topics and Content: The transience of worldly things, the instability of fortune, and the power of death.

The Diacritical Tilde

Some words use a tilde (´) to differentiate them from other words that are spelled the same but have different grammatical uses and functions.

Lexical Families and Semantic Fields

• Lexical Family: The set of all words formed from the same lexeme or root.
• Semantic Field: A set of words that share some common significant features but have others that differ.

Determinants

Determinants are words that accompany the noun, preceding and limiting its meaning. They agree in gender and number with the noun they accompany.

Classes of Determinants:

• Article: Individualizes the noun. The neutral article "lo" nominalizes adjectives.
• Demonstratives: Indicate proximity or distance in space and time.
• Possessives: Indicate to whom something belongs.
• Indefinites: Refer to a vague or unspecified quantity.
• Numerals: Indicate a precise quantity.
• Interrogatives/Exclamatives: Appear in interrogative and exclamatory sentences.

Mester de Clerecía

The "craft of the clergy," whose authors were educated, often regular clergy.

Metrics: Four-line stanzas, each line with 14 syllables (Alexandrine verses).

Topics: Religious, philosophical, or didactic.

Intention: To teach and educate the people, disseminating knowledge.

Principal Authors

• Gonzalo de Berceo (13th Century): Works include Marian poems (*Miracles of Our Lady*), lives of saints, and religious works.
• Archpriest of Hita (14th Century): *Book of Good Love*, a miscellany (varied content) including religious sections, didactic reflections, love affairs, fables, and poems.

Mester de Juglaría

The school or craft of minstrels. Minstrels orally transmitted heroic tales starring a heroic character. The minstrel's role was to entertain the public in the squares.

Chanson de Geste

Narrative poems, sung or recited, transmitted orally, recounting the exploits of a hero.

Features:

• Anonymous authorship and oral transmission.
• Heroic themes.
• Irregular meter.
• Use of typical formulations as resources:
  • Tiradas: Calling attention to the listener.
  • Epic epithets: Forms that recur continuously throughout the poem, usually accompanying the character.

The Song of the Cid

• Date of Composition: A manuscript copied by Per Abbad in 1307 is preserved.
• Author: Anonymous (possibly two 12th-century minstrels, or one learned 13th-century author).
• Meter: Irregular assonance and rhyme; verses are divided into two parts (hemistiches) separated by a caesura.
• Structure: The poem is composed of three *cantares* (songs): The Song of Exile, The Song of the Wedding, and The Song of the Affront of Corpes.