Andalusia Andalusia Andalusia .gif", event)' onMouseout='HidePop("34143")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Castile_(historical_region)">Castile
A former kingdom, Castile gradually merged with its neighbors to become the Crown of Castile and later the Kingdom of Spain with the Crown of Aragon and the Crown of Navarre...
. The cities that he visited included
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
,
SalamancaSalamanca is a city in western Spain, the capital of the province of Salamanca, which belongs to the autonomous community of Castile and Leon...
,
GranadaGranada is a city and the capital of the province of Granada, in the autonomous community of Andalusia, Spain.- Overview :The city of Granada is placed at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the confluence of three rivers, Beiro, Darro and Genil, at an elevation of 738 metres above sea...
, Jaén, and
ToledoToledo is a municipality located in central Spain, 70 km south of Madrid. It is the capital of the province of Toledo and of the autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha...
. Around 1605, he was ordained priest, and afterwards lived at
Valladolid||-||} is a historic city and municipality in north-central Spain, upon the Pisuerga River and within the Ribera del Duero wine-making region. It is the capital of the province of Valladolid and of the autonomous community of Castile and Leon.- Etymology :...
and
MadridMadrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. It is the third-most populous municipality in the European Union after Greater London and Berlin, and its metropolitan area is the third-most populous city by urban area in the European Union after Paris and London.The city is located on the river...
.
While his circle of admirers grew, patrons were grudging in their admiration. Ultimately, in 1617 through the influence of the Duke of Lerma, he was appointed honorary chaplain to King
Philip III of SpainPhilip III was the King of Spain and King of Portugal and the Algarves, where he ruled as Philip II of Portugal , from 1598 until his death. His chief minister was the Duke of Lerma...
, but did not enjoy the honor long.
He maintained a long feud with Francisco de Quevedo, who matched him in talent and wit. Both poets composed lots of bitter, satirical pieces attacking one other, with Quevedo criticizing Góngora's penchant for flattery, his large nose, and his passion for
gamblingGambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods. Typically, the outcome of the wager is evident within a short period....
. Quevedo even accused his enemy of
sodomySodomy is a term used today predominantly in law to describe the act of anal intercourse, oral intercourse, or bestiality.- Definitions :...
, which was a capital crime in XVII century Spain. In his "Contra el mismo (Góngora)", Quevedo writes of Gongora:
No altar, garito sí; poco cristiano, / mucho tahúr, no clérigo, sí arpía. Góngora's nose, the subject of Quevedo's "A una nariz", begins with the lines:
Érase un hombre a una nariz pegado, / érase una nariz superlativa, / érase una nariz sayón y escriba, / érase un peje espada muy barbado.
This angry feud came to a nasty end for Góngora when Quevedo bought the house he lived in for the only purpose of ejecting him from it. In 1626 a severe illness, which seriously impaired the poet's memory, forced him to return to Cordoba, where he died the next year. By then he was broke from trying to obtain positions and win lawsuits for all his relatives.
An edition of his poems was published almost immediately after his death by Juan López de Vicuña; the frequently reprinted edition by Hozes did not appear until 1633. The collection consists of numerous sonnets, odes, ballads, songs for guitar, and of some larger poems, such as the
SoledadesLas Soledades is a poem by Luis de Góngora, composed in 1613 in silva in eleven- and seven- syllable lines: hendecasyllables and heptasyllables ....
and the
Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (
Fable of PolyphemusPolyphemus , the gigantic one-eyed son of Poseidon and Thoosa, is a character in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclops. His name means "famous". Polyphemus plays a pivotal role in Homer's Odyssey.-Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey:...
and GalateaGalatea is an ancient Greek name meaning "she who is milk-white", most notably referring to:* Galatea , one of three figures of classical myth:**Galatea, a woman who prayed for her daughter to be turned into a son, Leucippus...
) (1612), the two landmark works of the highly refined style called "culteranismo" or "Gongorism."
Miguel de CervantesMiguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, often considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature and is regularly regarded among the best novels ever written. His work is considered among the most important in all...
, in his
Viaje del Parnaso, catalogued the good and bad poets of his time. He considered Góngora to be one of the good ones.
VelázquezDiego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez was a Spanish painter who was the leading artist in the court of King Philip IV. He was an individualistic artist of the contemporary baroque period, important as a portrait artist...
painted his portrait. Numerous documents, lawsuits and
satireSatire is often strictly defined as a literary genre or form; although in practice it is also found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, human or individual vices, follies, abuses, or shortcomings are held up to censure by means of ridicule, derision, burlesque, irony, or other methods,...
s of his rival Quevedo paint a picture of a man jovial, sociable, and talkative, who loved card-playing and
bullfightsSpanish-style bullfighting is called a corrida de toros , or fiesta brava. In traditional corrida, three toreros, also called matadores or, in French, toréadors, each fight two out of a total of six fighting bulls, each of which is at least four years old and weighs up to about Spanish-style...
. His bishop accused him of rarely attending
choirA choir, chorale, or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together is called a choir or chorus...
, and of praying less than fervently when he did go. Gongora's passion for card-playing ultimately contributed to his ruin. Frequent allusions and metaphors associated with card-playing in Góngora's poetry reveal that cards formed part of his daily life. He was often reproached for activities beneath the dignity of a churchman.
Style
Culteranismo existed in stark contrast with
conceptismoConceptismo is a literary movement of the Baroque period of Spanish literature. It began in the late 16th century and lasted through the 17th century....
, another movement of the Baroque period which is characterized by a witty style, games with words, simple vocabulary, and conveying multiple meanings in as few words as possible. The best-known representative of Spanish
conceptismo, Francisco de Quevedo, had an ongoing feud with Luis de Góngora in which each criticized the other's writing and personal life.
The word culteranismo blends
culto ("cultivated") and
luteranismo ("
LutheranismLutheranism is a major branch of Western Christianity that identifies with the teachings of the 16th century German reformer Martin Luther. Luther's efforts to reform the theology and practice of the church launched the Protestant Reformation...
") and was coined by its opponents to present it as a
heresyHeresy is proposing some unorthodox change to an established system of belief, especially a religion, that conflicts with the previously established opinion of scholars of that belief such as canon. It is sometimes confused with apostasy which is disaffiliation from orthodoxy and blasphemy which is...
of "true" poetry. The movement aimed to use as many words as possible to convey little meaning or to conceal meaning. "Góngora's poetry is inclusive rather than exclusive", one scholar has written, "willing to create and incorporate the new, literally in the form of neologisms."
Góngora had a penchant for highly Latinate and Greek neologisms, which his opponents mocked. Quevedo lampooned his rival by writing a
sonnetThe sonnet is one of the poetic forms that can be found in lyric poetry from Europe.The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song". By the thirteenth century, it had come to signify a poem of fourteen lines that follows a strict rhyme...
, "Aguja de navegar cultos," which listed words from Gongora's
lexiconIn linguistics, the lexicon of a language is its vocabulary, including its words and expressions. More formally, it is a language's inventory of lexemes....
: "He would like to be a culto poet in just one day, / must the following jargon learn: /
Fulgores, arrogar, joven, presiente / candor, construye, métrica, armonía..." Quevedo actually mocked Gongora's style in several sonnets, including "Sulquivagante, pretensor de Estolo." This anti-gongorine sonnet mocks the unintelligibility of culteranismo and its widespread use of flowery neologisms, including
sulquivagante (he who plies the seas; to travel without a clear destination);
speluncas ("caves");
surculos (sprouts,
scions
Grafting is a method of asexual plant propagation widely used in agriculture and horticulture where the tissues of one plant are encouraged to fuse with those of another. It is most commonly used for the propagation of trees and shrubs grown commercially.In most cases, one plant is selected...
). He was also the first to write poems imitating the speech of blacks.
Góngora also had a penchant for apparent breaks in syntactical flow, as he overturned the limitations of syntax, making the
hyperbatonHyperbaton is a figure of speech in which words that naturally belong together are separated from each other for emphasis or effect. This kind of unnatural or rhetorical separation is possible to a much greater degree in highly inflected languages, where sentence meaning does not depend closely on...
the most prominent feature of his poetry.
He has been called a man of "unquestioned genius and almost limitless culture, an initiator who enriched his language with the vast power, beauty, and scope of a mighty pen." As far away as
PeruPeru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean.Peruvian territory was home to the Norte Chico...
, he received the praise of
Juan de Espinosa MedranoJuan de Espinosa Medrano , known as El Lunarejo , was a Peruvian cleric, preacher, author of philosophical and literary tracts, and playwright. The year and place of his birth, as well as his ethnic origins, have been a matter of dispute...
(ca. 1629—1688), who wrote a piece defending Góngora's poetry from criticism called
Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora, Príncipe de los poetas lyricos de España: contra Manuel de Faria y Sousa, Cavallero portugués (1662).
As
Dámaso AlonsoDámaso Alonso y Fernández de las Redondas was a Spanish poet, philologist and literary critic. Though a member of the Generation of '27, his best-known work dates from the 1940s onwards....
has pointed out, Gongora's contribution to the
Spanish languageSpanish or Castilian is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that originated in northern Spain and gradually spread in the Kingdom of Castile, evolving into the principal language of government and trade in the Iberian peninsula...
should not be underestimated, as he picked up what were in his time obscure or little-used words and used them in his poetry again and again, thereby reviving or popularizing them. Most of these words are quite common today, such as "adolescente", "asunto", "brillante", "construir", "eclipse", "emular", "erigir", "fragmento", "frustrar", "joven", "meta", and "porción".
Works
Góngora's poems are usually grouped into two blocks, corresponding more or less to two successive poetic stages. His
Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (
Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea) and his
SoledadesLas Soledades is a poem by Luis de Góngora, composed in 1613 in silva in eleven- and seven- syllable lines: hendecasyllables and heptasyllables ....
are his best-known compositions and the most studied. The
Fábula is written in royal octaves (
octavas reales) and his
Soledades is written in a variety of metres and strophes, but principally in stanzas and
silvasSilva, in Spanish poetry, a strophe, laisse consisting of in eleven- and seven- syllable lines: hendecasyllables and heptasyllables , the majority of which are rhymed although there is no fixed order or rhyme, nor is there a fixed number of lines...
interspersed with choruses.
Góngora's
Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (1612) narrates a mythological episode described in
OvidPublius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who wrote about love, seduction, and mythological transformation....
's
Metamorphoses: the love of
PolyphemusPolyphemus , the gigantic one-eyed son of Poseidon and Thoosa, is a character in Greek mythology, one of the Cyclops. His name means "famous". Polyphemus plays a pivotal role in Homer's Odyssey.-Polyphemus in Homer's Odyssey:...
, one of the
CyclopsIn Greek mythology and later Roman mythology, a cyclops , is a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single eye in the middle of its forehead. The classical plural is cyclopes , though the conventional plural cyclopses is also used in English...
, for the
nymphA nymph in Greek mythology is a female spirit typically associated with a particular location or landform. Other nymphs, always in the shape of young nubile maidens, were part of the retinue of a god, such as Dionysus, Hermes, or Pan, or a goddess, generally Artemis. Nymphs were the frequent target...
Galatea-The name "Galatea":Though the name "Galatea" has become so firmly associated with Pygmalion's statue as to seem antique, it originated with a post-classical writer. No extant ancient text mentions her name...
, who rejects him. In the poem's end,
AcisThe 3D ACIS Modeler is a 3D modelling kernel owned by Spatial Corporation . ACIS is used by many software developers industries such as computer-aided design, , Computer-aided manufacturing , Computer-aided engineering , Architecture, engineering and construction , Coordinate-measuring machine ,...
, enamored with Galatea, is turned into a river.
Góngora's
Fábula de Píramo y Tisbe (
Fable of Pyramus and ThisbeThe love story of Pyramus and Thisbe, is a part of Roman mythology, and is also a sentimental romance.The tale is told by Ovid in his Metamorphoses.-Plot:Romeo and Juliet reflect the plot of this Roman myth...
) (1618) is a complex poem that mocks gossiping and avaricious women. Góngora also wrote sonnets concerning various subjects of an amatory, satirical, moral, philosophical, religious, controversial, laudatory, and funereal nature. As well as the usual topics (
carpe diemCarpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace . It is popularly translated as "seize the day". The general definition of carpe is "pick, pluck, pluck off, gather" as in plucking, although Horace uses the word in the sense of "enjoy, make use of."-Meaning of the phrase:In Horace, the phrase is...
etc.) the sonnets include autobiographical elements, describing, for example, the increasing decrepitude and advancing age of the author.
He also wrote plays, which include
La destrucción de Troya,
Las firmezas de Isabela, and the unfinished
Doctor Carlino.
Although Góngora did not publish his works (he had attempted to do so in 1623), manuscript copies were circulated and compiled in cancioneros (songbooks), and anthologies published with or without his permission. In 1627, Juan Lopez Vicuña published
Verse Works of the Spanish HomerHomer is a legendary ancient Greek epic poet, traditionally said to be the author of the epic poems the Iliad and the Odyssey...
, which is also considered very trustworthy and important in establishing the Gongorine corpus of work. Vicuña's work was appropriated by the
Spanish InquisitionThe Spanish Inquisition was an ecclesiastical tribunal started in 1478 by Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile. It was intended to maintain Catholic orthodoxy in their kingdoms, and to replace the medieval inquisition which was under papal control...
and was later surpassed by an edition by Gonzalo de Hozes in 1633.
Góngora and the Generation of '27The Generation of '27 was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. Their first formal meeting took place in Seville in 1927 to mark the 300th...
The
Generation of '27The Generation of '27 was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. Their first formal meeting took place in Seville in 1927 to mark the 300th...
took its name from the year in which the tricentary of Góngora's death, ignored by official academic circles, was celebrated with recitals, avant-garde happenings, and an ambitious plan to publish a new critical edition of his work, as well as books and articles on aspects of his work that had not been fully researched..
The Generation of '27 was the first to attempt to self-consciously revise baroque literature. Dámaso Alonso wrote that Góngora's complex language conveyed meaning in that it created a world of pure beauty. Alonso explored his work exhaustively, and called Góngora a "mystic of words." Alonso dispelled the notion that Góngora had two separate styles –"simple" and "difficult" poems- that were also divided chronologically between his early and later years. He argued that Góngora's more complex poems built on stylistic devices that had been created in Góngora's early career as a poet. He also argued that the apparent simplicity of some of Góngora's early poems is often deceptive.
Rafael AlbertiRafael Alberti Merello was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27....
added his own
Soledad tercera (
Paráfrasis incompleta). In 1961, Alberti declared: "I am a visual poet, like all of the poets from
AndalusiaAndalusia Andalusia Andalusia ' onMouseout='HidePop("78845")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Lorca">Lorca
Lorca is a city in southeast Spain, in the autonomous community of Murcia and 36 miles SW of the city of Murcia. It has a population of 90,924 , up from the 2001 census total of 77,477...
presented a lecture called "La imagen poética en don Luís de Góngora" at the Ateneo in
SevilleSeville is the artistic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level. The inhabitants of the city are known as Sevillanos or...
in 1927. In this lecture, Lorca paid
Jean EpsteinJean Epstein was a film director and early film theoretician.- Career :He started directing his own films in 1922 with Pasteur, followed by L'Auberge rouge and Coeur fidèle...
the compliment of comparing the film director with Góngora as an authority on images.
Modern references in fiction
The narrator of the
Captain AlatristeCaptain Alatriste is a series of novels by Spanish author Arturo Pérez-Reverte. It deals with the adventures of the title character, a Spanish soldier living in the 17th century.-Series:...
series, a friend of
Francisco de QuevedoFrancisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas was a nobleman, politician and writer of the Spanish Golden Age. Along with his lifelong rival, Luis de Góngora, Quevedo was one of the most prominent Spanish poets of the age. His style is characterized by what was called conceptismo...
within the stories, illustrates Góngora’s feuding with Quevedo, both by quoting poetry from each as well as describing Quevedo’s attitude toward Góngora through the course of the story. Excerpts of poetry from one against the other are included within the story itself and poetry from each is included at the back of some of the books.
External links