Spanish Baroque Literature - Characteristics of The Baroque

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 man happier; war and social inequalities continued; misery and calamity were common throughout Europe. An intellectual pessimism became more and more marked, together with a carefree character (of which the period's comedies and rogue narrations - on which the picaresque novels are based) give testimony.

• Disappointment: As Renaissance ideals failed and, in the case of Spain, political power continued to ebb, disappointment grew and was manifest in literature which in many cases recalled 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 diaper to the shroud. In conclusion, nothing temporal has importance, it is necessary only to obtain 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, Spanish writers reacted in several ways:

• Escapism: The avoidance of reality, through singing past feats and glories, or through presenting an ideal world in which problems are resolved and order prevails; this is the case of the theater of Lope de Vega and his followers. Others, meanwhile, took refuge in the world of art and mythology, as in the case of Luis de Góngora.
• Satire: Another group of writers chose to make fun of the reality, like Quevedo, Góngora on some occasions, and in the picaresque novel.
• Stoicism: Complaints on the vanity of the world, the fleetingness of beauty, life, and fame. The greatest exponent of this was Calderón de la Barca in the autos sacramentales.
• Moralizing: Criticizing the defects and vices, and proposing models of conduct in line with the political and religious ideology of their time, typefied by the narrative and doctrinal prose of Gracián and of Saavedra Fajardo.