The Baroque literature It is the literary manifestation that took place in Europe just after the Renaissance and coinciding with the so-called Spanish Golden Age. It is there, in Spain, where this trend had its greatest splendor and development.
Baroque literature is subject to the general movement that gives it its name (Baroque) and which covers not only letters, but also a wide compendium of artistic manifestations. This literary expression also coincides with the so-called Catholic Counter-Reformation, and in a certain way it serves as a pillar in its discursive apparatus..
The common themes of the literature of Romanticism used to be life and its constant change, the fleeting nature of the human being, pain and suffering. Man and his existence, his impact on other beings and things, is the epicenter of the works of the most representative authors.
Baroque literature is considered, in part, an overloaded, ostentatious, abusive style in the use of literary devices such as metaphor or antithesis. This movement arises at a time of many social, political, economic and existential tensions.
This chaotic situation led the authors to express themselves, to talk about the sorrow of miseries, the plague, the inequality between classes, and the relief that religiosity means..
It is possible to say that there could not have been a better environment, better conditions for the development of this literary trend. Those themes used by the writers were the breeding ground for hundreds of works, the solid foundations that allowed the clear argumentation of the Baroque movement..
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The first expressions written with literary elements considered clearly baroque were carried out in England, Italy and France.
By the end of the 16th century, a well-marked demonstration of what would later be considered baroque literature was already appreciated in English literature..
John Lyly was the main and first major exponent in Anglo-Saxon lands. His work Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit, in 1578, it adheres perfectly to the baroque parameters.
In this work, John Lyly makes an exaggerated use of bombastic terms. An exaggerated aestheticism is appreciated, highly charged, although well elaborated, with a grotesque tendency to the artificial.
Based on that particular work by Lyly, Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit , and its remarkable style, gives its name to what would be a precursor sub-movement of the Baroque and an important part of it: Eufuism.
For their part, in France, at the end of the 16th century and the beginning and middle of the 17th century, Parisians developed an exaggerated taste for good manners and refinement.
This behavior came as a response to the vulgarities perceived by society in Enrique IV and his court. This movement was called "Preciosismo".
In all areas of the social behavior of Parisians, they bet on elegance, fine. Regarding language and letters, France had as its main exponent Claude Favre, who published his renowned work in 1647: Remarques sur la langue française, useful in ceux qui veulent bien parler et bien écrire.
In this work, the author highlights the necessary good use that must be given to each word in the French language.
There, particularly, the trend was very similar to the English one. Giovanni Battista Marini, a Neapolitan writer with an immense literary production, was in charge of laying the foundations for Baroque in the Italian peninsula..
In the style of this Neapolitan, brimming with hyperbole, metaphors and antitheses, it was called "marinism." It was characterized by a subtle handling of excessive and exaggerated literary forms. His poetry, with more than 40 thousand verses, was highly descriptive and focused on astonishing the reader.
It is practically this English-French-Italian trinomial that gives rise to the birth of the Baroque as a movement. It is important to note that the term "Baroque" was designated after the culmination of the period, and was coined in a derogatory way: grotesque works, exaggerated without a deep and real meaning..
As is common throughout the history of man, each trend, each current of thought generates other manifestations. The Renaissance and the Baroque do not escape from that reality, they are more than subject to fine threads. The links between the two streams are broad and complex.
After the wear and tear of the Renaissance structure, stylized and overloaded proposals emerged from the crisis, which would later be baptized as Baroque..
There is a need for expansion that is satisfied through the new paths that the emerging trend brings with it..
The term "Baroque" was coined during Romanticism, when the manifestations whose aesthetics were typical of this movement had diminished. This term, etymologically speaking, comes from the Portuguese word baroque, which means "irregular or misshapen pearl".
It is more than evident that those who used that word sought to brand as "grotesque" or "amorphous" the manifestations of this literary trend..
They had plenty of reasons to classify the movement as exaggerated, however the constant use of rhetoric allowed a deepening and refinement of this resource..
Although there is evidence of an exaggerated use and management of formal resources in writing, it is impossible to obscure the ideological charge that Baroque literature possesses..
The works of the writers, due to the various crises that were manifested in the context of production, manifest a marked subjection to the religious conceptions of the Catholic order.
There is an attachment to the Counter-Reformation, a support for the devotional machinery that the pontifical meant at that time.
The themes of the Renaissance are not left aside, on the contrary, they are taken in full decline and widened, exaggerated. The crisis in which the European peoples were plunged at that time revealed in the streets the worst of the human race.
Plagues, hunger, laziness, begging, were the daily bread. These realities did not escape the pen of the writers. The influence was such that the vast majority of authors used their pen to expose the worst of the species. The reluctance could be breathed in a large number of works.
Life was considered a total lie, while the truth, with its harshness and sadness, was hidden under the polished surface gloss that the elites make the unwary see..
As there is marked support for everything concerning the defense of the Catholic Church regarding the Protestant reform initiated by Luther and Calvin, the presence of aspects of a spiritual nature in literary productions is notorious..
These themes responded, in many cases, more to the security that the church could provide in those moments of crisis than to wanting to provide readers with peace of mind through faith. The writers, human at last, sought their survival.
Baroque literature came loaded with great innovations in terms of modes and techniques. This is reflected and massed throughout Europe by the hand of the Counter-Reformation. Particularly in Spain there is a broader growth compared to the rest of European countries.
Spanish writers absorbed the literary manifestations of neighboring countries and adjusted them to their language. Those linguistic adaptations, or Spanishizations, gave way to new stanzas for their culture. The triplet was used to a great extent, together with the sonnet, the quatrain, and the redondilla..
As never before in Spanish culture there has been an unbridled increase in the use of bombastic terminologies. It starts from Renaissance classicism from which a renewal was generated through the enhancement of rhetorical resources.
The Renaissance was characterized by the calm and serenity of its literary proposals, everything tended to balance. When the Baroque erupted, there was a destabilization and a conflict was entered between the aesthetic and the formal..
This characteristic is evident throughout all of Europe, having a different development in each country, adjusted, of course, to each production context..
This becomes one of the most common characteristics present in the literature of this period, especially by the so-called "culteranos".
Exaggeration is the order of the day in every literary genre. The outrageous adjectives, as well as the use of antithesis, metaphor and whatever rhetorical resource was possible to overload a work, were applied.
It is a gross error to think that the literary manifestation of the Baroque was homogeneous, nothing could be further from reality. The writers of this time took different attitudes regarding the context in which they lived.
However, within the literary creations that were given there are aspects in common in a large majority that allowed them to be organized into two groups: the culteranos and the conceptistas.
Your perception of beauty is linked to the enhancement of the qualities of the object or being that you want to beautify. These writers made notable use of hyperbole and metaphors in their works..
In the same way they resorted to mythology, intermingling it with other aspects that, in certain cases, make it dark and make it difficult to understand. Luis de Góngora is considered one of the great exponents of this style.
These writers, for their part, focused primarily on content. His way of covering literature is more ingenious and profound, making the most of the duality in the significance of certain words, therefore the presence of double meanings is perceived in his works..
Conceptists tended to express more complex ideas in a few words. They had the quality that by dealing with superfluous subjects, they managed to give him notoriety by tackling them splendidly. Francisco de Quevedo or Calderón de la Barca are considered one of the most prominent exponents of this literary style..
Within the literary genres of the Baroque, the following stand out:
Due to the already hopeless context, poetry became one of the literary forms most exploited by the writers of that period. The expression of feelings takes special notoriety.
Each author made use of the resources and forms best suited to their interests, the cultured forms of poetry being the most recurrent. These are clearly appreciated within the culteranas and conceptistas works. Eclogues, tenths, sonnets, among many other poetic forms were abundant.
Popular poetry is also evident at that time, full of themes of love and disappointment, with a less deep and more digestible content. It is aimed at the masses, the people.
If there is a place worthy of being considered the precursor of Baroque prose, it was Spain. The coincidence of the Baroque with the Spanish Golden Age allowed an unprecedented creative boiling point in prose.
Written productions such as the novel were of great importance in those years. Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra was one of the greatest exponents.
By then there are two notable novelistic forms: the picaresque, where the protagonist is from the common people and shows the hardships that the poor live; and the courtesan, aimed at showing the luxuries, outrages and eccentricities of the wealthy of the time.
The theatrical text was one of the genres with the greatest impact during the Baroque, because it reached the population directly and explicitly without distinction of strata.
Representations with religious, mythological, and historical connotations were very common. The authors always sought to grace themselves with the leaders and pontiffs on duty, at the same time that they entertained the people, in order to win favors in return.
Well-organized theater companies developed, born out of traveling theaters in the streets. These exhibited freer and more popular themes, weighed down from the common topics of the courts and the church. Among its great representatives, Lope de Vega highlights.
Outstanding works:
- The Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea (1612).
- The Solitudes (1613).
- Fable of Pyramus and Thisbe (1618).
Outstanding works:
- All Devils Speech or Amended Hell (1628).
- History of the life of the Buscón called Don Pablos; example of wanderers and stingy mirror (1626).
- The Court of Just Vengeance (1635).
Outstanding works:
- Amorous and exemplary novels (1637).
- Novels and saraos (1647).
- Love disappointments in (1649).
Outstanding works:
- Angelica's beauty, with various other rhymes (1602).
- The Dorotea (1632).
- The Gatomaquia (1634).
Outstanding works:
- Love, honor and power (1623).
- The mayor of Zalamea (1651).
- To God for reasons of state (1650-1660).
Outstanding works:
- The galatea (1585)
- The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha (1605)
- The ingenious knight Don Quixote de la Mancha (1615)
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