Poetry took numerous forms in medieval Europe, for example, lyric and epic poetry. The troubadours, trouvères, and the minnesänger are known for composing their lyric poetry about courtly love usually accompanied by an instrument.
Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages. The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works. Just as in modern literature, it is a complex and rich field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberantly profane, touching all points in-between. Works of literature are often grouped by place of origin, language, and genre.
A kharja or kharjah, is the final refrain of a muwashshah "girdle", a lyric genre of al-Andalus written in Arabic or Andalusi Romance ("Mozárabic").
Andalusi Romance, also called Mozarabic or Ajami, refers to the varieties of Ibero-Romance that developed in Al-Andalus, the parts of the medieval Iberian Peninsula under Islamic control. Romance, or vernacular Late Latin, was the common tongue for the great majority of the Iberian population at the time of the Umayyad conquest in the early eighth century, but over the following centuries, it was gradually superseded by Andalusi Arabic as the main spoken language in the Muslim-controlled south. At the same time, as the northern Christian kingdoms pushed south into Al-Andalus, their respective Romance varieties gained ground at the expense of Andalusi Romance as well as Arabic. The final extinction of the former may be estimated to 1300 CE.
A cantar de gesta is the Spanish equivalent of the Old French medieval chanson de geste or "songs of heroic deeds".
El Cantar de mio Cid, or El Poema de mio Cid, also known in English as The Poem of the Cid, is the oldest preserved Castilian epic poem. Based on a true story, it tells of the deeds of the Castilian hero Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar—known as El Cid—and takes place during the eleventh century, an era of conflicts in the Iberian Peninsula between the Kingdom of Castile and various Taifa principalities of Al-Andalus. It is considered a national epic of Spain.
Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the Kingdom of Spain. Its development coincides and frequently intersects with that of other literary traditions from regions within the same territory, particularly Catalan literature, Galician intersects as well with Latin, Jewish, and Arabic literary traditions of the Iberian peninsula. The literature of Spanish America is an important branch of Spanish literature, with its own particular characteristics dating back to the earliest years of Spain’s conquest of the Americas.
Mester de juglaría is a Spanish literature genre from the 12th and 13th centuries, transmitted orally by "juglares" who made their living by reciting and singing these stories for the recreations of nobles, rulers, and the general public. These were people of humble origins, traveling comedians who also engaged in circus acts like juggling, tightrope walking, and acrobatics, or acted as clowns who told jokes or played simple instruments, or danced and sang versions of simple mime or puppet pieces, or, importantly, recited verses composed by other authors, called troubadours, either in public places, or in castles of feudal lords for whom they were housed; much of the time they also supported themselves by the visual arts.
Mester de Clerecía is a Spanish literature genre that can be understood as an opposition and surpassing of Mester de Juglaría. It was cultivated in the 13th century by Spanish learned poets, usually clerics.
Muwashshah is the name for both an Arabic poetic form and a musical genre. The poetic form consists of a multi-lined strophic verse poem written in classical Arabic, usually consisting of five stanzas, alternating with a refrain with a running rhyme. It was customary to open with one or two lines which matched the second part of the poem in rhyme and meter; in North Africa poets ignore the strict rules of Arabic meter while the poets in the East follow them. The musical genre of the same name uses muwaššaḥ texts as lyrics, still in classical Arabic. This tradition can take two forms: the waṣla of the Mashriq and the Arab Andalusi nubah of the western part of the Arab world.
This article concerns poetry in Spain.
French poetry is a category of French literature. It may include Francophone poetry composed outside France and poetry written in other languages of France.
Ramón Menéndez Pidal was a Spanish philologist and historian. He worked extensively on the history of the Spanish language and Spanish folklore and folk poetry. One of his main topics was the history and legend of El Cid. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 26 separate years, thus, being the most nominated person.
The Mocedades de Rodrigo is an anonymous Castilian cantar de gesta, composed around 1360, that relates the origins and exploits of the youth of the legendary hero El Cid.
The Poema de Fernán González is a Castilian epic poem, specifically, a cantar de gesta of the Mester de Clerecía. Composed in a metre called the cuaderna vía, it narrates the deeds of the historical Count of Castile, Fernán González. It was written between 1250 and 1266 by a monk of San Pedro de Arlanza. In 1960 a fourteenth-century Arab roofing tile was discovered in Merindad de Sotoscueva north of Burgos that had some verses of the poem scrawled on it in Old Spanish. It is the oldest copy of the work.
The Libro de Alexandre is a medieval Spanish epic poem about Alexander the Great written between 1178 and c. 1250 in the mester de clerecía. It is largely based on the Alexandreis of Walter of Châtillon, but also contains many fantastical elements common to the Alexander romance. It consists of 2,675 stanzas of cuaderna vía and 10,700 lines.
Aragonese literature of Spain includes Aragonese-language poetry, prose and novels.
The Poem of Almería is a medieval Latin epic poem in 3851⁄2 leonine hexameters. It was appended to the end of the Chronica Adefonsi imperatoris, an account of the reign of Alfonso VII of León and Castile, and narrates the victorious military campaign of 1147 that culminated in the conquest of the port of Almería. The poem, as it survives, is unfinished, abruptly ending mid-line before recounting the actual siege of Almería itself. Of its surviving lines, 293 consist of "dénombrement épique, a stirring roll-call of the chief members and contingents of the army".
The golden age of Jewish poetry in Al-Andalus developed in the literary courts of the various taifas. Like its Arabic counterpart, its production diminished in the 12th century under the rule of the Almoravids and Almohads. In the last part of the 10th century, Dunash ben Labrat revolutionized Jewish poetry in Al-Andalus by bringing Arabic meter and monorhyme into Hebrew writing. Jewish poets employed Arabic poetic themes, writing bacchic poetry, garden poetry, and love poetry.
The literature of al-Andalus, also known as Andalusi literature, was produced in al-Andalus, or Islamic Iberia, from the Muslim conquest in 711 to either the Catholic conquest of Granada in 1492 or the expulsion of the Moors ending in 1614. Andalusi literature was written primarily in Arabic, but also in Hebrew, Latin, and Romance.
