Spanish Baroque literature
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| Literature of Spain |
|---|
| • Medieval literature |
| • Renaissance |
| • Miguel de Cervantes |
| • Baroque |
| • Enlightenment |
| • Romanticism |
| • Realism |
| • Modernismo |
| • Generation of '98 |
| • Novecentismo |
| • Generation of '27 |
| • Literature subsequent to the Civil War |
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The Spanish Baroque literature is the literature written in Spain during the Baroque.
The literary Baroque took place in Spain in the middle of the so-called Spanish Golden Age of Spanish Literature. Spain was governed in that period by Philip II, Philip III and Philip IV, the last one governing until 1665.
During the previous century, Spain had reached its greatest unity and territorial extension. By inheritances, diplomatic conquests, agreements or real marriages, Naples and Sicily, Flandes, Germany, Hungary and Portugal, aside from new and rich territories of America, were put under the sceptre of Charles V. Then, the "Philips" lost, one by one, all the European territories. This caused serious religious, political, internal and international problems.
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[edit] Historical frame
During this century the House of Austria governed in Spain, under which the country entered a period of progressive decay. As in the 16th century, the monarchs delegated their power to unpopular court favourites.
Philip III (1598-1621) inherited a great empire in bankruptcy, but also the enmity with England and the Netherlands. The Duke of Lerma moved the court to Valladolid in 1600; six years later it returned to Madrid. He signed peace with England in 1604 and a truce with the Netherlands (1609-1621). He expelled the moriscos from the Peninsula (1609), a decision which impoverished agriculture and commerce in the country.
The Duke of Uceda succeeded the Duke of Lerma. Spain then took part in the Thirty Years' War. The nobility increased their power, while the economy stagnated and copper coinage started to replace gold and silver.
Philip IV granted power to the Count-Duke of Olivares, who tried to maintain Spanish supremacy over France in a war begun in 1635, and control over the Netherlands.
Fiscal pressure and general political displeasure caused revolts in Portugal, Catalonia, Aragon, Navarre and Andalusia. The palace of the Buen Retiro was built, where lavish court events were held.
The Count-Duke was replaced by Luis Menéndez de Haro. At his resignation, an influential nun, María de Jesús de Ágreda, became the king's advisor. In 1648 Spain signed the Treaty of Westfalia, by which some territories were lost, and Holland obtained its independence.
In 1659 the war with France ended with the Peace of the Pyrenees. Poverty, epidemics and high taxes caused an alarming drop in population and encouraged rapid migration from the country to the city. Many areas were left depopulated, which harmed the national economy.
Charles II (1665-1700) was the last Spanish king in the House of Austria. Since he was four years old when he inherited the throne, his mother, Mariana of Austria, was appointed regent, with the cooperation of a council of notables.
During his reign, Portugal (annexed to Spain during the reign of Philip II in 1580) obtained its independence. Continuous war with France highlighted Spain's decay relative to the power of that nation.
Charles II was weak and sickly and nicknamed the "Bewitched". He had no children by either of his wives and named Philip of Anjou, the future Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV of France his heir. Even before his death, other European monarchs had been attracted to Spanish territory. His death without direct descendents prompted the War of Spanish Succession.
[edit] Characteristics of the Baroque
The Baroque is characterized by the following features:
- Pessimism: The Renaissance had been not successful in its purpose of imposing the harmony and the perfection over the world, as the humanists tried, and neither had made the man more happy; the wars and social inequalities continued being present; the pain and the calamities were common in all Europe. An intellectual pessimism, more and more marked, settled together with the carefree character of which the comedies of that time and the rogue narrations - on which the picaresque novels are based- give testimony.
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- Disappointment: As the Renaissance ideals failed and, in the case of Spain, the political power was vanishing, the disappointment continued and was manifest also in literature, which, in many cases, remembered that of two centuries before, as in the Dance from the Death or the Songs to the death of my father by Manrique. According to Quevedo, life is formed by "successions of deceased": the new born ones become them, from the diapers to the shroud with which the bodies are covered. In conclusion, nothing has importance, it is only necessary to obtain the eternal salvation.
- Preoccupation about the passage of time.
- Loss of confidence in the ideals of the Renaissance.
In view of the crisis of the Baroque, the Spanish writers reacted in several ways:
- Escaping: They try not to have anything to do with the reality, and they do that by singing feats or old glories of the past, or presenting an ideal world in which the problems are solved properly and the order prevails; this is the case of the theater of Lope de Vega and his followers. Others, nevertheless, prefer to take refuge in the world of the art and mythology, as it is the case of Luis de Góngora.
- Satirizing the reality: Another group of writers chooses to make fun of the reality, like Quevedo, Góngora in some occasions, and in the picaresque novel.
- With stoicism: They expose their complaint on the vanity of the world, the fleetingness of the beauty and the life, the transitory fame. The maximum exponent of this attitude was Calderón de la Barca in the autos sacramentales.
- By moralizing: They criticize the defects or vices proposing models of conduct agreed with the political and religious ideology of their time. Their main exponents are the narrative and doctrinal prose of Gracián and Saavedra Fajardo.
[edit] Prose
[edit] Miguel de Cervantes
The narrative of the 17th century is opened with the figure of Miguel de Cervantes, who returned to Spain in 1580 after ten years of absence.
His first printed work was The Galatea (1585). It is a pastoral novel (see Spanish Renaissance literature) in six books of verse and prosa, according to the model of the Diana of Montemayor; although it breaks with the tradition when introducing realistic elements, like the murder of a shepherd, or the agility of certain dialogues.
In 1605 he published The ingenious hidalgo Don Quixote of Mancha, with immediate success.
In 1613 the Exemplary novels appeared. They are a collection of twelve short novels that look for an exemplarity, although this one is not always clear.
The following prose of Cervantes was The ingenious knight don Quixote of Mancha (1615), second part of the Don Quixote.
In 1617, a year after Cervantes died, The works of Persiles and Sigismunda appeared. It is a Byzantine novel or Greek novel, in the wake of Heliodorus (3rd century CE) and his The Ethiopian Story of Theagenes and Chariclea; it relates, in four books, how Periandro and Auristela travel from northern territories of Norway or Finland to Rome to receive Christian marriage. As it is typical of this subgenre, throughout the trip they will undergo eventful journeys or works: the captivity by Barbarians, the jealousy of pretenders of both lovers. The work takes advantage of resources of the Exemplary Novels, specially the italianizing ones, like the tangle, the confusions, disguises, etc.
[edit] Francisco de Quevedo
Francisco de Quevedo wrote towards 1604 his first work of fiction in prose: the picaresque novel titled The Life Story of the Sharper called Don Pablos, example of wanderers and mirror of scrooges.
In addition, Quevedo cultivated the satirical, political and moral prose in works in which a stoic moral dominates, and which deal with subjects like the critic of archetypes of the society of the Baroque, the constant presence of the death in the life of man, and the Christian fervor whereupon the politics has to conduct itself.
The first of his Dreams dates from 1605: The Dream of the Judgment narrates the resurrection of the deads, that respond of their life. It is a social satire against professions or states: jurists, doctors, butchers...
In 1619 he writes the Politics of God, government of Christ and tyranny of Satan, political treatise in which he exposes a doctrine of good government or mirror of princes for a right king, who must have Jesus Christ as model of conduct. It is a treaty that is fitted into the line of the Spanish anti-Machiavellism, and proposes a politics free of intrigues and unconnected with bad influences.
Towards 1636 Quevedo concludes his last great satirical prose: The hour of everybody and the Fortune with prudence, unpublished until 1650. In it, Jupiter requests to the Fortune to give during one hour what each one truly deserves. That leads to show the false appearances, the other face of the reality, and the hidden truth after the veils of the hypocrisy, operating by antithesis. Thus the paradox occurs in which the doctors are in fact executioners, the rich are poor but thieves, and really, a gallery of social types, offices and states is presented, which are satirized implacably.
Marcus Brutus (1644) arises from glosses or commentaries to the biography that Plutarco wrote on this Latin statesman in his Parallel lives.
[edit] Baltasar Gracián
The most important work of the second half of the century is The Critical one (1651-1657) of the Aragonese Jesuit Baltasar Gracián (1601-1658). With it, the Spanish novel is solved in concepts or abstractions. The idea prevails over the concrete figure. It is a philosophical novel written in form of allegory of the human life.
Gracián cultivated the didactic prose in treaties of moral intention and practical purpose, like The Hero (1637), The Politician don Fernando the Catholic (1640) or The Discreet one (1646). In them he creates a full series that exemplifies the modelic, prudent and sagacious man, and the qualities and virtues that must adorn him.
The Manual oracle and art of prudence is a set of three hundred aphorisms to prevail in the complex world in crisis of the 17th century. (An English version of this dense treatise has been sold as a manual of self-help for executives and has obtained a recent publishing success.)
He also wrote a rhetoric of Baroque literature, that starts from the texts to redefine the figures of speech of the time, because they did not adjust to the usual models. It is a treaty on the concept, which he defines as "an act of the understanding which expresses the correspondence that is found between the objects". That is to say, a concept is every association between ideas or objects. To their classification and dissection Gracián dedicated his Art of talent, treatice on the witticism (1642), extended and reviewed in the later Witticism and art of talent (1648).
The style of Gracián is dense and polysemous. It is constructed from brief sentences, that contain abundant plays on words and ingenious associations of concepts.
His attitude before life is disillusioned, as it corresponds to the decay of the Spanish society. The world is like a hostile space full of deceits and appearances that reign on the virtue and the truth. The man is an interested and malicious being. Many of his books are manuals of behavior that allow the reader to result gracefully in spite of the maliciousness of his fellow men. For that, he must be prudent and wise, and learn of the vital experience and know the intentions of the others, until the point to behave "to the occasion" and "to play of the" dissimulation.
Gracián is recognized as precursor of the existentialism. He also influenced the French moralists like La Rochefoucauld, and in the 19th century the philosophy of Schopenhauer.
[edit] Other prosists of the baroque
Lope de Vega stands out, of whom the well-known Novels to Marcia Leonarda can be emphasized. They are a collection of miscellaneous novels, brief works, of loving thematic and tangling technique, in which verse and prose are mixed, and exotic atmospheres --moriscos, Jews, etc.-- with recharged erudition and frequent and tedious digressions.
Mateo Alemán y de Enero (Seville, 1547 - Mexico, 1615) was the author of the picaresque novel Life of the rascal Guzmán de Alfarache, published in 1599. This work settled down the canon of the genre, it achieved a formidable success in Spain and Europe, and was well-known par excellence as "the rascal of Alemán". In 1604 he published in Lisbon the second part of the Guzmán de Alfarache. The European success of this work was formidable; it was translated almost immediately to the Italian in the Venecian presses of Barezzi in 1606; it was published in German in Munich in 1615; J. Chapelain translated the two parts of the novel to the French and published them in Paris in 1620; two years later the English version was printed in London by James Mabbe who, in an extraordinary prologue, says of the rascal Guzmán that he was "similar to a ship, that sails on the brink of the shore, and never finishes taking port".
Alonso de Castillo Solórzano (1584 - 1648), natural of Tordesillas (Valladolid), was a very popular novelist, author of The girl of the lies Teresa de Manzanares (1632), Adventures of the Trapaza Bachelor (1637) and The marten of Seville and hook of the bags (1642). They are works of picaresque cut in which novels, poems and some entremés are mixed, as we have already seen in Lope de Vega.
Not without reason the Madrilenian María de Zayas y Sotomayor (1590-1661) is considered an important novelist of the century. In 1637 her Loving and exemplary novels appear, a collection of ten stories in which the erotic thematic creates conflicting and surprising situations.
Luis Vélez de Guevara (1579-1644), Sevillian, was follower of Francisco de Quevedo and author of The devil cojuelo (1641), a social satire accompanied by allegorical figures.
This half of the century closes with the Life and facts of Estebanillo González, man of good humor (Antwerp, 1646). It narrates his life (1608-1646) as servant of many masters and soldier in several occasions. It displays characteristics of the picaresque genre: swindles, fights, deceits, drunkenness, robberies and prostitution.
The religious prose shines with Miguel de Molinos (1628-1696), from Teruel but established in Rome. His stand still doctrine can be read in Spiritual guide (1675), a manual of contemplative mystic which despises the action.
[edit] The poetry
Luis de Góngora and Francisco de Quevedo were the two most important poetic authors. Both poets were enemies and composed lots of bitter (and funny) satirical pieces attacking each other.
Góngora's lyric collection consists of numerous sonnets, odes, ballads, songs for guitar, and of certain larger poems, such as the Soledades and the Polifemo, the two landmarks of culteranismo.
Quevedo's poetry first appeared in an anthology by Pedro de Espinosa, Flowers of Illustrious Poets (1605). Quevedo was a master of the conceptismo, movement opposed to the culteranismo.
[edit] The theater
The theater representations of this time took place in open sites, squares or fixed corrals: the corrals of comedies. They began around two in the afternoon and lasted until the dusk. They did not have, in general, seats and the spectators remained all the representation standing up. The nobility occupied the balconies and windows of the houses that surrounded the square or led to the corral, and the ladies attended the spectacle with the face covered with masks or through the lattice windows. The function began with the execution in guitar of a popular piece; immediately, songs accompanied with diverse instruments were sung. The praise came soon, species of explanation of the merits of the work and synthesis of its argument. The main comedy or work then started, and in the intervals dances were executed or entremeses represented.
The scene was a simple platform and the decoration a curtain. The changes of scene were announced by one of the actors.
The poet wrote the comedy, paid by the director, to whom he yielded all the rights on the work, represented or printed, to modify the text. The works lasted three or four days in the billboard, or (with exceptions) fifteen days for a successful comedy.
Juan de la Cueva, in the second half of the 16th century, introduced two elements of great importance for the boom of this artistic production: the popular ethics, that gave origin to the comedies of national historical character, and the freedom to compose plays considering the taste of the public. Lope de Vega and Tirso de Molina took these characteristics to their total accomplishment.
[edit] Lope de Vega
At the end of the 16th century Lope de Vega creates the new comedy: to an action of loving subject is superposed another action, historical or legendary, of moriscos, of captives, or religious. It concludes with a happy end. Constructed on three days, the redondilla or the décima is used in the dialogues, the romance in the narrations, the sonnet in the monologues and the tercet in the serious situations.
The new art to make comedies, written in 1609, is a humorous defense of his theater. He shows scorn about the rigid interpretation that the theorists of the Renaissance --mostly Italian-- had done of the Aristotelian ideas on the theatre, and he proposes as values, the naturalness as opposed to the artifice, the variety as opposed to the units, and taking in consideration the taste of the public.
Among his prolific dramatic production, some works can be emphasized:
Peribáñez and the Commander of Ocaña (1604-12) is a tragicomedy developed in 1406 in Toledo: Peribáñez understands that the Commander of Ocaña has overwhelmed him with honors to harass his woman. After killing him he wins the royal pardon.
Towards 1614 Lope would compose one of his better tragicomedies: Fuenteovejuna. Following the Chronicle of the three orders (Toledo, 1572) of Francisco de Rades, it shows the abuses of the Commander Fernán Gómez de Guzmán over the neighbors of Fuenteovejuna and over Laurencia, just married with Frondoso. The murder of the Commander by the town and the pardon by the Catholic Kings in view of the evidence finishes off the action. A popular revolt in view of the abuse of power is seen, but it only reflected a precise injustice and it emphasized the submission to the king.
The Knight of Olmedo (about 1620-25), tragedy rooted in the Celestina, is based on a popular cantar: Don Alonso dies at the hands of Don Rodrigo, jealous to lose Doña Ines.
The best mayor, the King is about the dignity of the farmer: Don Tello, haughty nobleman, abuses Elvira, engaged to the farmer Sancho. Alfonso VII let her recover her reputation, making her marry Don Tello, and then executed him, to make the --now noble-- widow marry Sancho.
[edit] Calderón de la Barca
The other great dramatist of the 17th century was Pedro Calderón de la Barca (1600-1681). His most famous work is The life is dream (1635), philosophical drama that displays Segismundo, son of the king of Poland, chained in a tower, by the fateful prognoses of the royal astrologers. Meanwhile, Rosaura demands in the Court that her honor has been robbed by Duke Astolfo. This one courts Estrella to become king. The aggressiveness of Segismundo explodes when he is released of his tower, where he returns, chained, believing to have dreamed his experience of freedom. When a riot rescues him again, his will overcomes the predictions: he dominates his condition, he marries Rosaura with Astolfo and he accepts the hand of Estrella.
The garrotte better given could have been released in 1636 or 37. It is printed in 1651. From 1683 on it receives the title of The mayor of Zalamea. It presents the violation of Isabel, daughter of Pedro Crespo, by the captain Alvaro de Ataide. Being Pedro Crespo named mayor, he executes him. The king listens to his defense and he gives the reason to him. This customary drama of honor follows the subject so Lope-like of the honor of the villain.
[edit] Bibliography
- Introducción al Barroco, E. Orozco, ed. José Larra Garrido, Universidad de Granada, 2 vols, 1988.
- La poesía en la Edad de Oro. Barroco, Pilar Palomo, ed. Taurus, Madrid, 1987.
- El teatro en España (1490-1700), Melveena McKendrick, ed. Oro Viejo, Barcelona, 1994.
- Manierismo y Barroco, E. Orozco, ed. Cátedra, Madrid, 1981.
- Notas sobre el Barroco, E. Tierno Galván, Escritos (1950-1960), Tecnos, Madrid, 1971.
- Traditions populaires et diffusion de la culture en Espagne (XVIe-XVIIe siècles), PUB, Bourdeaux, 1981.
- "El Barroco español" (1943-44), Estilo y estructura en la literatura española, L. Spitzer, Crítica, Barcelona, 1980.
- El Pinciano y las teorías literarias del Siglo de Oro, S. Shepard, Gredos, Madrid, 1970.
- Hacia el concepto de la sátira en el siglo XVII, A. Pérez Lasheras, Universidad de Zaragoza, 1995.
- El prólogo en el Manierismo y Barroco españoles, A. Porqueras Mayo, CSIC, Madrid, 1968.
- La teoría poética en el Manierismo y Barroco españoles, A. Porqueras Mayo, Puvill, Barcelona, 1989.
- La prosa didáctica en el siglo XVII, Asunción Rallo, Taurus, Madrid, 1988.
[edit] See also
- Literature of Spain: evolution of the Spanish literature.
- Baroque: the movement in general.
- Spanish Golden Age: in Spain.
