Spanish Baroque literature (17th century)

What period of literature are you referring to? : Spanish Baroque literature (17th century)

The Spanish Baroque corresponds to the second part of the Golden Age of Spanish literature, that is, to the seventeenth century. This period follows the Renaissance, with which it maintains many differences.

The Baroque was a period of deep instability, crisis, restlessness and pessimism, characterized by great political, economic and social decline.

The seventeenth century is a turbulent period, of political, economic and social crisis in Spain in which the language evolves and becomes darker and more popular. The aesthetics of conceptismo (where content prevails) and culteranismo (where you have to take care of the form) are invented . It is during this time that moralizing and burlesque productions appear to criticize the situation of the time.

During this time, society turned towards theocentrism, abandoned by anthropocentrism and humanism.

In literature there are excessive ornaments, contrasts, mixtures … Nothing to do with the previous century.

Among the characteristics of the Baroque, are:

• Pessimism
• The contrasts
• The grotesque
• The mockery of the classic
• the idealism
• The fear of death and the devaluation of life due to its expiration

What literary genres were cultivated?

The baroque style seeks the expressiveness of the language , either giving priority to the form (culteranismo) or the content (conceptismo), or even both.

As we have already mentioned, this period corresponds to the great boom of Spanish literature of the seventeenth century , a very prolific period in all genres:

Main works and most representative authors

Finally, the Spanish Baroque was a very prolific period in which the following stood out among other authors:

• Miguel de Cervantes:  La Galatea, Don Quixote , Exemplary Novels
• Francisco de Quevedo:  The life of the buscón called Don Pablos
• Luis de Góngora: Solitudes
• Lope de Vega:  Fuenteovejuna  and  Arcadia
• Tirso de Molina:  The Trickster of Seville
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca:  Life is a dream  or  The great theater of the world
• Gracián:  The critic Spanish Baroque literature (17th century)