Spanish literature in the high and late middle ages

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The beginnings of Spanish literature in the high and late Middle Ages developed in the field of tension between Latin, Visigoth, Arabic-speaking and Jewish-Hebrew-speaking cultures. Through the 800 years of Muslim rule over al-Andalus , which encompassed large parts of the Iberian Peninsula , and the convivencia - the coexistence of cultures, which, however, increasingly came into contact since the 12th century - the literary business of multiculturalism and a great translation tradition embossed. For example, we owe the translation school of Toledo the preservation of many Greek works (e.g. the complete and authentic Aristotle ) that had fallen victim to the Christian faith and now back to Latin via Arabic and later into Castilian (under Alfonso el Sabio ) could return.

The first linguistic monuments in Spanish vernacular were simple glosses (commentaries on religious texts) from the 10th century from the monasteries of San Millán de la Cogolla and Silos . The first surviving works of poetry were Chardjas ( Jarchas ) in Aljamiado spelling. The first Spanish author known by name was the cleric Gonzalo de Berceo (around 1198 - 1264), who wrote saints' lives and miracles ( milagros ) of the Virgin Mary in vernacular verses in San Millán .

Only one work of the heroic epic has survived (and not in full): the Cantar del Mio Cid (around 1200), which goes back to a Latin source.

Also worth mentioning is the French influence on scholarly poetry, which flourished briefly between 1230 and 1260. This becomes clear if one looks at, for example, the mester de clerecía , a four-line, usually fourteen- syllable rhyme with a fixed set of rules.

In addition to poetry, Spanish prose also developed under strong influence from abroad. The first prose work in Castilian, Kalila and Dimna , is a translation from Arabic and is intended to entertain a discerning scholarly class. This narrative style comes from the Oriental-Indian area and thus made its way into Western literature .

While in England and Germany chivalric romance was at its peak, to Spain dealt only marginally with the love and battle experience of the nobility: the Caballero Zifar mixes adventure with religiosity, avoiding unchristian behavior.

Poetry

The beginnings of courtly poetry on the Iberian Peninsula can be found, for example, cantigas de amor and cantigas de amigo in Galician and Portuguese. With the secession of Portugal, the poetry of Castile begins. El romance is considered the main genre of Spanish poetry. It is a poem with no stanzas, which usually only takes up twelve, but rarely a few hundred stanzas. The sixteen silver usually have a clear middle caesura. The Romanceros , collections of romances in book form, became important in the middle of the 15th century . The romanceros of the 15th century contain mainly two lyrical genres, the canción and the decir . During this period, the originally Italian sonnet was introduced into Castilian literature by the Marqués de Santillana .

El libro de buen amor

Literary studies always associate the Spanish High Middle Ages with the Libro de buen amor , a work that is still popular to read even today. The tension and wit of this “human” comedy (as opposed to Dante's divina commedia ) have endured through the centuries. The authorship of the libro de buen amor is not clearly established, the literary fiction names Juan Ruiz , archpriest of Hita, as an autobiographer. The imprisoned Juan Ruiz tells varying episodes from his life, for example fables , rough-erotic serranillas (mountain poems) and Christian praise. The main text is in the mester de clerecía , the insertions are in varying rhyme schemes.

Prose poem

The Spanish export product with Europe-wide success, the novelas sentimentales , were mostly low-action texts with a tendency towards sentimentality in which the love and inner life of the protagonists were subjected to a precise analysis. The almost always abstract plot takes place in the surroundings of the courtyard and leads either to desperate frustration or to the use of love in a catastrophe. According to unanimous research opinion, one cannot yet speak of novels in the current sense.

The most famous text of this direction is Cárcel de amor by Diego de San Pedro .

La Celestina

La Celestina is one of the Spanish works that made the leap into the canon of world literature. Originally the work was called tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea . This already indicates the romantic-tragic plot. The book cannot be classified in any particular genre . At first it resembles a play, but a stage that could do justice to the complexity of the work did not exist around 1500. It is therefore believed that the work was read in a group with assigned roles. Hence the name novela dialogada .

literature

  • AD Deyermond: A Literary History of Spain: The Middle Ages. London 1971
  • Janheinz Jahn: Divan from Al-Andalus. Adaptations of Hispano-Arabic poetry. Harriet Schleber, Kassel 1949. With the afterword of the translation.
  • Hans-Jürgen Neuschäfer (Ed.): Spanish literary history. 3. Edition. Stuttgart, Weimar 206.

See also