Spanish Renaissance & Baroque Poets: Key Figures & Styles

St. John of the Cross

A Carmelite friar who, along with St. Teresa of Ávila (Teresa of Jesus), participated in the reform of the Carmelite Order. He studied in Salamanca.

His poetry often follows the line of Garcilaso. He wrote notes comparing the mystical vision and experience of God to the union of two lovers, which makes his work highly allegorical. His three major works include:

• Dark Night of the Soul
• Spiritual Canticle
• Living Flame of Love

Asceticism and Mysticism

Asceticism involves a lifestyle based on the rejection of material goods, characterized by simplicity, humility, and the absence of luxuries.

For the ascetic, self-sacrifice is the first step towards mysticism, whose aim is the union of the soul with God through three ways (or stages):

1. The Purgative Way
2. The Illuminative Way
3. The Unitive Way

Fernando de Herrera

An author with a humanistic education who published collections of poems, including sonnets, canciones, elegies, and pastorals.

Garcilaso de la Vega

He represents the ideal Renaissance man ('ombre'). His work consists of approximately:

• 40 sonnets
• 4 songs (canciones)
• The Ode to the Flower of Gnidus
• 2 elegies
• 1 epistle (to Boscán)
• 3 eclogues

Sonnets and Songs: Poetic Periods

Poems Before 1533

Characterized by the loving rhetoric of the cancionero tradition and Petrarch's influence.

Poems After 1533

Show softer and more melancholic sentimentality, including sonnets on mythological themes.

Fray Luis de León

An Augustinian friar and professor (holding Chairs) at the University of Salamanca. He was imprisoned by the Inquisition, charged with translating the Song of Songs into the vernacular (Spanish).

Poetic Work

Metrics

He primarily employed the lira stanza form, although he also used other smoothed stanza types.

Topics

• Exaltation of virtue and control over passions.
• Contemplation of universal harmony created by God (often viewed as a divine musician).

Style

Developed a new poetic language that was refined, elegant, and close to Garcilaso's style.

Luis de Góngora

Góngora's work includes both popular poems (romances, letrillas) and complex, learned poems, such as:

• Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea
• The Solitudes (Soledades)
• Panegyric to the Duke of Lerma

Góngora's Styles and Culteranismo

Góngora is known for two distinct styles. His later, more complex style is based on the concentration of stylistic procedures (hyperbaton, metaphors, neologisms, classical allusions), marking him as a poetic revolutionary. This style was often perceived as elitist and remote from the populace.

Despite accusations of obscurity ('darkness'), his innovative forms spread and came to constitute a major poetic stream known as Culteranismo.