Spanish Literature

C

15th Century

During the 15th century, Spanish literary production increased enormously. The outstanding poets of this period are Íñigio López de Mendoza, commonly known as the Marqués de Santillana; Juan de Mena; and above all Jorge Manrique, who in his Coplas a la muerte de du padre (Stanzas on the Death of His Father), an elegy, gave perfect expression to the Christian acceptance of death. At this time stories from the epic poems were combined in romanceros, collections of short ballad-like pieces that were sung with instrumental accompaniment. Contemporary events also were dealt with as the romancero assumed its final form after successive changes by various juglares.

Satirical and historical writing flourished during the 15th century. The Spanish monarchs Ferdinand V and Isabella I, during their joint reign (1474-1504), promoted the study of the humanities. The most noted scholar at the time was the grammarian and lexicographer Antonio de Nebrija or Lebrija, pen name of Elio Antonio Martínez de Jarava, who was the author of Gramática sobre la lengua Castellana (1492, Grammar of the Castilian Language). In this period also, the most celebrated and imitated Spanish novel of chivalry, Amadis of Gaul (1508), was given its present form. As a result of its influence many novels of chivalry in a similar style were published during the 16th century.

The Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea (1499, Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea), written by Fernando de Rojas and far more popularly known by the title La Celestina, is the second most important work in the total body of Spanish literature; first, of course, is the story of Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes (see below). La Celestina is a novel in dialogue combining elements of both narrative and drama. The literary sources of this work, which exerted considerable influence upon the development of literature in Spain, are Latin and medieval, but it expresses a concept of life diverging deeply from the religious spirit of the Middle Ages. Set against a background of realistically drawn underworld life in an unnamed Spanish city during the Renaissance, the story concerns two noble lovers, Calisto and Melibea, who resort to the services of a bawd named Celestina to further their love. The lives of these three characters become entangled inextricably and all three are brought to disaster. Never before had Spanish literature presented the tragedy of life with such insight into human nature and such mastery of the means of expression. The artistic maturity and diversity of style attained by the author of La Celestina were invaluable models for the authors of the Golden Age of Spanish literature, which began not long after the publication of this pioneering work.

III

The Renaissance and the Golden Age

In the reign (1516-1556) of King Charles I, Spain won control of much of Europe and established its colonial empire in the New World. In this period Spanish writers followed the philosophical and artistic trends of the Renaissance. The paramount influence in the realm of ideas was that of the Dutch scholar and humanist Desiderius Erasmus. The works of some of his Spanish disciples, including the philosopher Juan Luis Vives and the theologian Juan de Valdés, were read widely and translated throughout Europe. The same is true also of works by their contemporary, the Franciscan monk, didactic writer, and historiographer Antonio de Guevara y de Norona. During this period many humanistic dialogues were written, mainly by the followers of Erasmus, and there was much historical writing. The most important historians of the Spanish Renaissance and Golden Age were Diego Hurtado de Mendoza and the Jesuit Juan de Mariana.

A

Poetic Themes and Styles

Pastoral poetry, a type of verse dealing with the life and manners of fictional shepherds, or in which the speakers assume the characters of shepherds, was another type of writing that flourished during the Renaissance and Golden Age. The themes and the moods of pastoral poetry, together with such Italian metres and verse forms as the sonnet, ottava rima, canzone, tercet, and blank verse, were first employed extensively in Spain by the poets Juan Boscán Almogaver and Garcilaso de la Vega. Garcilaso was not only an innovator in the use of Italian metres and pastoral subjects but also a superb poet who conveyed authentic emotions in verses of classical serenity.

In Spanish literature, more than in that of most other countries, innovations seldom wholly supplant established traditions. Thus, the old and new poetic manners coexisted during the 16th century; a number of works were written in each manner. Religious life in Spain became more intense about the middle of the 16th century, partly as a consequence of the concern felt by Spanish Catholics over the Protestant Reformation. The new style of poetry was adapted to express spiritual attitudes far removed from those of pastoral poetry. The first important writer of verse in this genre was the religious poet, scholar, and Augustinian monk Luis Ponce de León, known as Fray Luis de León, in whose poems Christian devotion is blended with the cult of beauty, the love of nature, and the quest for classical serenity characteristic of the Renaissance. Fray Luis's contemporary, the Carmelite monk Juan de Yepes y Álvarez, known as St John of the Cross, composed what many critics consider the most intense and luminous poems written in the Spanish language. In these poems he attempted to express, in terms of human love, the ineffable mystical experience of the union of the human soul with God. Another important poet of this period was Fernando de Herrera, who wrote in the Baroque style that became characteristic of the next era in Spanish literature.

Baroque poetry, which is characterized by a proliferation of the metaphors and other rhetorical devices of the Renaissance, reached its culmination in the 17th century. The best examples are the elaborate, contorted works of the poet Luis de Góngora y Argote. From his name is derived the term Gongorism, which is often used to designate the style characteristic of Baroque Spanish poetry. Góngora has frequently been attacked by critics because of the obscurity and artificiality of much of his poetry, but he is generally acknowledged today as one of the supreme masters of Spanish lyric poetry. Also of great importance in the history of Spanish literature is the poet, prose writer, and satirist Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas, whose best works are notable for their great depth of feeling and amazing wit.

B

Religious Prose

Several important mystic and ascetic writers produced notable works of prose during the last two-thirds of the 16th century. Among them were the Dominican monk and prelate Luis de Granada, whose writings manifest both asceticism and a deep feeling for nature, and especially the famous Carmelite nun and mystical writer St Teresa of Ávila, who created a new symbology to express her mystical experiences. In her treatises she achieves the spontaneity and freshness of colloquial speech. The most important theologian of the Golden Age was the Jesuit Scholastic philosopher Francisco Suárez, whose works were written in Latin.

C

New Fictional Forms

Around 1550, several new forms of fiction appeared. These included the pastoral novel, the Moorish novel, and the picaresque novel.

The pastoral novel, a vehicle for idyllic tales about idealized shepherds, is a genre that had flourished earlier in Italy and Portugal. The most outstanding example in Spanish of the pastoral novel is La Diana (c. 1559, The Diana) by the Portuguese writer Jorge de Montemayor.

The Moorish novel was a Spanish invention that blended literary trends of previous centuries with those of the 16th century, accomplishing this by presenting chivalric tales of the wars against the Moors in the form of a novel. It had as its first example the short anonymous work El Abencerraje (1598, The Abencerraje).

Both pastoral and Moorish novels present idealized images of human nature. In contrast, the anonymous novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554, Lazarillo of Tormes) presents a pessimistic picture of society, as seen through the eyes of a boy who serves several different masters. This work was the prototype of the picaresque novel that flourished at the beginning of the 17th century. Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604; Rogue or Life of Guzmán of Alfarache, 1924), by Mateo Alemán, and Historia de la vida del Buscón (1626; The Life and Adventures of Buscon, 1657), by Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas, are the most outstanding examples of the picaresque genre. The genre enjoyed tremendous success in Spain as well as in other countries and became a major influence on the European novel of the 18th century.

Authors of picaresque fiction present a sombre view of humanity, no less distorted in its way than the idealized visions of bucolic or chivalric literature. In contrast to such warped pictures of human nature, the works of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, particularly the novel El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605-1615; The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, 1612-1620), present a complete image of humankind in both its greatness and weakness. Cervantes began Don Quixote possibly with the simple intention of writing an amusing story and disparaging the fad for books of chivalry, which were the escapist literature of the time. From its very first pages, however, the book presents a story that is multidimensional to a degree never before achieved in a modern European work of fiction. Mad and wise, grotesque and admirable, Don Quixote appears to the reader as a human being entirely convincing in his complex nature and in the shifts induced in his behaviour by the clash between the world of his dreams and surrounding reality. Equally convincing and complex is the character of Don Quixote's squire, Sancho Panza. The down-to-earth outlook of the squire contrasts with and moderates the illusions of his master at the same time that Sancho comically shares them. The book offers a complete picture of Spanish society and displays an amazing range of themes, characters, ideas, and techniques.

The influence of Don Quixote extended far into the following centuries. Each subsequent period in European culture gave its own interpretation of the story and found in it a model for new types of fiction. The 12 novelettes making up the Novelas ejemplares (1613; Exemplarie Novells, 1638), also by Cervantes, are powerful, minor literary works, and his imaginative romance Persiles y Sigismunda (1617; The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda, 1619) is one of the masterpieces of Spanish Baroque prose.