Spanish Golden Age: XVI-XXI C.

1. Questing for the
Golden Age
from
Cervantes’s Spain
to
Today’s USA
Harry Vélez Quiñones
Distinguished Professor of Hispanic Studies

2. What is the Golden Age?

3. George Ticknor (1791−1871) and American Empire

4. Ticknor’s America at the Start of the XX Century
A 1900 Campaign poster for the Republican Party with the motto
"The American flag has not been planted in foreign soil to acquire more territory
but for humanity's sake."

5. Ticknor’s Spain: The Spanish Golden Age

6. The Golden Age Speech − Don Quixote, I,11 (1605)
John Vanderbank – Don Quixote
Addressing the Goatherds – 1730
Walter Crane – Don Quixote and the
Goatherds – 1900

7. The Golden Age
Ovid – Metamorphoses – Book 6
•
In the beginning was the
Golden Age, when men of their
own accord, without threat of
punishment, without laws,
maintained good faith and did
what was right. . . . The earth
itself, without compulsion,
untouched by the hoe, unfurrowed
by any share, produced all things
spontaneously. . . . It was a
season of everlasting spring.(3)
Publius Ovidius Naso
(43 BC−AD 17) Roman poet
Luigi Deluise − 1840

8. Lucas Cranach the Elder − The Golden Age − 1530

9. 1492
Beginning of Spanish political, social, economic and
cultural power
Excelente (coin denomination) of
Ferdinand and Isabella c. 1497−1520
•
At the end of the middle ages, the
totality of the Iberian Peninsula was
under the authority of the Catholic
Monarchs, Ferdinand and Isabella,
after the capitulation of the last Muslim
kingdom, Granada in 1492. That year
some other decisive events took place:
•
The expulsion of an important religious
minority: The Sephardi Jews
The finding of vast and rich overseas
territories: The New World
The systematization of the Castilian
language in the first in the first
grammar of of its kind: Nebrija
•
•

10. Grammar of the Castilian Language
Antonio de Nebrija
•Nebrija said, justifying the usefulness
of his Grammar in the Prologue, “has
always been the companion of
empire.” These words were
remarkably prophetic, for Spanish
soon became, of course, an imperial
language with the “discovery” of
America and with Spain’s expansion
into northern Europe, just as Latin
had been the great imperial language
of its day.

11. The Catholic Monarchs
Ferdinand II of Aragón (1452−1516)
Isabel I of Castile (1451−1504)
Juan Cordero Hoyos – Columbus Before the Catholic Monarchs – 1850

12. Charles V: King of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor
(1500–1558)
Emperor Charles V at the Battle of Muehlberg – Titian – 1547

13. Philip II
(1527–1598)
Titian – Philip II in Armor
1548
Sofonisba Anguissola – Philip II
c. 1568

14. Spain in Europe and the World c. 1560

15. Philip III
(1578–1621)
Philip III, on horseback – Diego Velázquez – 1629−1635?

16. Philip IV
(1605–1665)
Philip IV – Diego Velázquez – 1655−1660

17. Charles II
(1661–1700)
Charles II of Spain
Juan Carreño de Miranda – 1685

18. 1898: Ticknor and the End of the Spanish Golden Age?
•
In every country that has yet obtained a
rank among those nations whose
intellectual cultivation is the highest, the
period in which it has produced the
permanent body of its literature has been
that of its glory as a state. The reason is
obvious (. . .) Just so it was with Spain
(. . .) Only a little more than a century
elapsed before the government that had
threatened the world with a universal
empire was hardly able to repel an
invasion from abroad (. . .) As a people,
they sunk away from being a first-rate
power in Europe, till they became one of
altogether inferior importance (. . .) the
earnest faith, the loyalty, the dignity of
the Spanish people were gone . . .
George Ticknor, History of Spanish
literature (I, 419-433)

19. El ingenioso hidalgo
Don Quijote de la Mancha
(1605−1615)

20. The Golden Age Speech − Don Quixote, I,11 (1605)
John Vanderbank – Don Quixote
Addressing the Goatherds – 1730
Walter Crane – Don Quixote and the
Goatherds – 1900

21. Jean−Charles−Léonard Simonde de Sismondi
(1773−1842)
•“He [Cervantes] stands
foremost in that band of
classical authors who cast such
glory on the reigns of the three
Philips, during the latter part of
the sixteenth, and the
commencement of the
seventeenth century”
•Historical View of the
Literature of the South of
Europe (1853)

22. Spanish Golden Age Literature
•
La Celestina (1499) – Fernando de Rojas
•
Bookends of the Golden Age
•
•
•
Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) – Anon.
– [Don Quijote (1605 & 1615) – Miguel de Cervantes]
El criticón (1657) – Baltasar Gracián
Other Golden Age writers:
• Garcilaso de la Vega − 1501−1536
• Teresa de Ávila 1515−1582
• Hernando de Acuña − c.1520−1580
• Luis de León 1528−1591
• Juan de la Cruz 1542−1591
• Luis de Góngora 1561−1627
• Lope de Vega 1562−1635
• Tirso de Molina 1579−1648
• Francisco de Quevedo 1580−1645
• María de Zayas 1590−1661
• Pedro Calderón de la Barca 1600−1681

23. Cervantes: Soldier and Poet
Paolo Veronese - The Battle of Lepanto (1571)
•
•
•
•
•
•
The son of a deaf surgeon, Miguel de
Cervantes was born in Alcalá de
Henares, near Madrid in 1547.
He became a soldier in 1570 and was
badly wounded in the Battle of Lepanto.
Captured by the Turks in 1575,
Cervantes spent five years in prison. He
was freed in 1580 and returned home.
Cervantes finally achieved literary
success in his later years, publishing the
first part of Don Quixote in 1605 and the
second in 1615..
He died in 1616.
Since his passing, Cervantes has been
credited with writing the first modern
novel. His work has inspired countless
other authors, including Gustave
Flaubert, Henry Fielding, and Fyodor
Dostoyevsky.

24. A force de toujours lire...
le pauvre gentil−homme perdit l'esprit.
Horace Vernet (1822)

25. The Golden Age
•
Metamorphoses 1:113−122,
Ovid (43 BC–17 AD)
The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
No rule but uncorrupted reason knew:
And, with a native bent, did good pursue.
Unforc'd by punishment, un−aw'd by fear,
His words were simple, and his soul sincere;
Needless was written law, where none opprest:
The law of Man was written in his breast:
No suppliant crowds before the judge appear'd,
No court erected yet, nor cause was heard:
But all was safe, for conscience was their guard.

26. Garcilaso de la Vega – (1503−1536)
and his First Elegy

27. Hernando de Acuña (c.1520-1580)
and his sonnet To the King our Lord

28. Cervantes (1547–1616)
and his sonnet At the catafalque of Philip II in Seville

29. Garcilaso, Acuña, Cervantes
and the Chivalric Ideal
• Vittore Carpaccio
• Portrait of a Knight (1510)
• Museo
Thyssen−Bornemisza,
Madrid

30. The Plight of the Moriscos (1502−1609)
Moriscos from Granada
Arrival of the moriscos in
Oran, North Africa – Vicent
Mestre (1613)

31. The Plight of the Mexican
and Central American Immigrants

32. Cervantes’s tongue in the USA

33. Hispanics and Cervantes’s Tongue in the USA
•
Hispanic educational attainment rose sharply
from 2009 to 2010: The share of Hispanic 18to 24-year-olds who have completed high
school increased to 73% in 2010 from 70% in
2009, and the share of young Hispanic high
school graduates who are attending college
increased to 44% in 2010 from 39% in 2009.
•
Although Hispanic youths have narrowed the gap
in college enrollment, Hispanic young adults
continue to be the least educated major racial or
ethnic group in terms of completion of a
bachelor’s degree. In 2010, only 13% of Hispanic
25- to 29-year-olds had completed at least a
bachelor’s degree. In comparison, more than half
(53%) of non-Hispanic Asian young adults have
at least a bachelor’s degree, and nearly 39% of
white young adults completed a four-year
degree. The low college completion of Hispanic
young adults partly reflects the lower schooling
levels of Hispanic immigrants.

34. A New Golden Age

35. The End
35