Spanish Medieval Narrative and Epic Poetry

Spanish Narrative: From Origins to the Golden Age

In Greco-Roman culture and Western literature, epic verse emerged, resulting in ethopoeias or epics. With the passage of time, prose began to be used, which in the sixteenth century would give rise to the modern novel.

Medieval Narrative in Verse

Traits of medieval narrative poetry include:

• Historical function: Character information or news.
• Intention: The protagonist acts in favor of political or religious enterprises.
• Style: The use of phrases and popular literary characters.

Within the narrative in verse, we find: Mester de Juglaría, Mester de Clerecía, and Romances.

The Mester de Juglaría

The minstrels were entertainers who made their living from their performances in castles, squares, and taverns. They recited from memory compositions in verse that featured heroic exploits, battles, and legendary events, which eventually came together to form the chanson de geste.

• Time: From the 12th to the 14th century.
• Authors: Popular and anonymous.
• Theme: Heroic.
• Purpose: Didactic protagonist.
• Metrics: Irregular, with lyrics composed and polymetric with the same assonance rhyme. The change of rhyme indicates a change in the stanza.
• Style: Frequent use of enumerations led by anaphora. Appeals in the 2nd person plural and the use of fixed expressions facilitate memorization. Epic epithets are prominent.

Inside the Mester de Juglaría, we find the Poem of the Cid.

The Mester de Clerecía

This is the name given to the poetic school of cultured writers who were mostly clerics.

• Time: 13th century to the 14th century.
• Authors: Gonzalo de Berceo and Arcipreste de Hita.
• Theme: Religious and moral, but also historical and fictional.
• Purpose: Teaching and moralizing.
• Metrics: Regular, using the Cuaderna Vía (an Alexandrine stanza of 4 lines with the same assonance rhyme).
• Style: More cultured and careful than that of the minstrels.

The Spanish Romances

A romance is a series of a variable number of verses with the same assonance rhyme in even-numbered lines, while the odd lines remain loose. The romance comes from the fragmentation of the chanson de geste: the juggler takes into account the tastes of the public and changes parts of the story to make it more entertaining. We distinguish:

• Romance-story: Narrative of a complete history, including the setup, knot, and denouement.
• Romance-scene: Lacks an entire structure and is focused on a moment of high tension.

Old Romances

Structured in the Middle Ages, these are anonymous and transmitted orally from father to son. Among them, we distinguish:

• Traditional or Historical Romances: Themes derived from the epics.
• Minstrel Romances: Composed by minstrels addressing border romances, the Carolingian and Breton cycles, and romantic or lyrical themes.

New Romances

They are characterized by:

• Narrative animation with the omission of links (juxtaposition).
• Alternation of tenses in the narrative to give vitality to the text.
• Appeals to the public in the 2nd person plural.
• Inclusion of dialogues and the use of short, quick, and simple rhetoric.