La Epoca Medieval Ap Spanish Literature
Elisabetta Buendia
Medieval Spanish literature consists of the corpus of literary works written in Old Spanish between the beginning of the 13th and the end of the 15th century. Traditionally, the first and last works of this period are taken to be respectively the Cantar de mio Cid, an epic poem whose manuscript dates from 1207, and La Celestina (1499), a work commonly described as transitional between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance.
By the end of the 10th century, the languages spoken in the Iberian Peninsula had developed far from their Latin origins, and can assuredly be called Romance. Latin texts were no longer understood, as can be seen from the glosses used in manuscripts of Castile to explain Latin terms.
Spanish oral literature was doubtless in existence before Spanish texts were written. This is shown by the fact that different authors in the second half of the 11th century could include, at the end of poems written in Arabic or Hebrew, closing verses that, in many cases, were examples of traditional lyric in a Romance language, often Andalusi Romance. These final refrains are known as kharjas (jarchas in Spanish).
The earliest recorded examples of a vernacular Romance-based literature date from the same time and location, the rich mix of Muslim, Jewish, and Christian cultures in al-Andalus, in which Maimonides, Averroes, and others worked. The kharjas, dating from the 9th to the 12th centuries C.E., were short poems spoken in local colloquial Iberian Romance languages known as Andalusi Romance, which was written with the Arabic script. The kharjas appeared at the end of longer poetry written in Arabic or Hebrew known as muwashshah, which were lengthy glosses on the ideas expressed in the kharjas. Typically spoken in the voice of a woman, the kharjas express the anxieties of love, particularly of its loss, as in the following example:
This combination of Iberian Romance expression with Arabic script, only discovered in 1948, locates the rise of a Spanish literary tradition in the cultural heterogeneity that characterized Medieval Spanish society and politics. However, the Andalusi Romance of the kharjas appears to be a separate language whose evolution from Vulgar Latin paralleled that of the languages in northern Spain such as Spanish rather than deriving from or fusing into it. While the relatively recent discovery of the kharjas challenges the pride of chronological place that belonged for so long to El Cantar de mio Cid (1140 C.E.) in the history of Spanish literature, they cannot be seen as a precursor to Spain's great epic poem. What the discovery of the kharjas makes clear instead is that from its origins, the literature of Spain has arisen out of and born witness to a rich, heterogeneous mix of cultures and languages.[1][2][3]
Medieval Spanish poets recognized the Mester de Juglara as a literary form written by the minstrels (juglares) and composed of varying line length and use of assonance instead of rhyme. These poems were sung to uneducated audiences, nobles and peasants alike.
This Castilian narrative poetry known as the mester de clereca became popular in the thirteenth century. It is the verse form of the learned poets, usually clerics (hence the name 'clereca'). These poets carefully counted the number of syllables in each line and strived to achieve perfect lines. The line form is the Alexandrine line (14 syllables) with consonantal rhyme in stanzas of four lines each. This form is also known as the cuaderna va "fourfold way" and was borrowed from France. It was popular until the late fourteenth century. Popular themes of these poets were Christian legends, lives of saints, and tales from classical antiquity. The poems were recited by villagers in public plazas.
Two traits separate this form from the Mester de Juglara: didacticism and erudition. Castilian priest and poet Gonzalo de Berceo was one of the greatest followers of the mester de clereca. All of his works were religious; two of the most well-known are Milagros de Nuestra Seora (about the miracles worked by Mary, mother of Jesus) and Vida de Santa Oria. Shem Tob ben Isaac Ardutiel, called "Sem Tob de Carrin", a Jewish poet born towards the end of the thirteenth century, was very admired for his Proverbios Morales.[4] Fourteenth-century poet Juan Ruiz, called the "Arcipreste de Hita, used the cuaderna va in parts of his famous work Libro de buen amor. He introduced sixteen-syllable lines.
Spanish prose gained popularity in the mid-thirteenth century when Alfonso X of Castile gave support and recognition to the writing form. He, with the help of his groups of intellectuals, directed the composition of many prose works including Las siete partidas, the first modern book of laws of the land written in the people's language. Another work was Estoria de Espaa, which accounted for the history of Spain from the Creation until the end of the reign of his father, San Fernando. For his direction of these works and many others he directed, Alfonso X is called the father of Spanish prose. His nephew, Juan Manuel, Prince of Villena, is famous for his prose work Tales of Count Lucanor, which is a frame story: short stories within an overall story. In this work, the Conde Lucanor seeks advice from his wise counselor, Patronio, who advises by telling of stories. Juan Manuel also wrote lesser-known works such as El libro de los estados on the social classes and El libro del caballero y escudero on philosophical discussions.
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, writer Hernando del Pulgar (1436-1490?) created a new type of prose named the verbal portrait. This form is demonstrated by Pulgar's work Claros varones de Castilla in which he represents the detailed lives of twenty-four distinguished contemporaries. He explores their moral and psychological natures as well as physical traits. Pulgar was the official historian of Fernando and Isabel, the Catholic Monarchs of Spain. This position gave him close encounters with the characters in this book, making the work realistic and detailed.
Another well-known medieval Spanish poet is Jorge Manrique. He is famous for his work which laments the death of his father, Coplas a la muerte de su padre. In this piece, Manrique shows classical feelings by expressing himself in a universal manner (all things come to an end). He is still considered a poet of the Middle Ages in that he finds peace and finality in religion.
The Auto de los Reyes Magos is the oldest extant liturgical drama (12th century) written in Spanish language. It is a codex found in the library of the Toledo Cathedral and is a mystery play belonging to the Christmas cycle. It is a play about the Biblical Magi, three wise men from the East who followed a star and visited the baby Jesus in Bethlehem.[5] It is believed to have been based on an earlier liturgical Latin play written in France.[6]
The Misteri d'Elx (in English, the Elx Mystery Play or Mystery Play of Elx) is a liturgical drama dating from the Middle Ages, which is enacted and celebrated in the Basilica de Santa Mara in the city of Elx on 14 and 15 August of each year. In 2001, UNESCO declared it one of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity. It commemorates the Assumption of Mary.
Cecilia Criado is a titular professor at Santiago de Compostela University, from which institution she holds a doctorate in Classical Philology. She works in the area of post-Augustean, and more specifically, Flavian epic. Her main object of study is Statius and the pre-existing Greco-Roman literary production that makes up the complex intertextuality of the Flavian poet. Currently, her work focuses on an extratextual approach to the dynamics between literature and power. In the field of textual criticism, she has authored critical editions and translations of Medieval and Renaissance texts on musical aesthetics (Msica y esttica en la poca medieval, with a prologue by E. Fubini).
Sandra Romana Martn has a doctorate in Classical Philology from the Complutense University of Madrid, and currently works as an assistant professor at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She has also had the opportunity to research in the Universities of Siena, Athens and Oxford. Her thesis dealt with the scene of the assembly of the gods in Greek and Latin literatures, and since then she has continued to investigate other conventional scenes and formal resources in Antiquity and in the classical tradition. Her current work focuses on an analysis of the form and function of allegorical personifications as literary characters in the epic of the Flavian period, as well as their intertextuality.
She has been a member of various research projects on the survival and presence of Latin poetry in Spanish literature, and is currently also part of the Research Group 'Itinera' at the Autonomous University of Madrid.
Neil Coffee is a professor at the University at Buffalo, SUNY. His role in this project is strictly one of an advisory and consultative nature. Apart from his excellent research record in the area of Roman literature, he is one of the world's most highly trained and respected classical philologists in the field of Digital Humanities.
In 2012 he founded the accredited Digital Classics Association, which he currently co-directs. Since 2013 he has been a member of the consultative team of the Electronic Text Re-use Acquisition Project (eTRAP) at the University of Gttingen, and since 2015 is an affiliate member of the Techne Institute for Arts and Emerging Technologies, University at Buffalo. He is the Director of Tesserae, an impeccable web-base tool for detecting allusions in Latin poetry. He presented this project in Santiago de Compostela at the meeting of the researchers Statius International Conference organized by W. Dominik (University of Otago) and C. Criado in June 2013.
He has a solid theoretical background, and his narratological, intertextual and receptional analyses constitute a notable contribution to the methodological renewal of literary studies of ancient literature.
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