Siglo de Oro
The Spanish Golden Age, the period of exceptional Spanish literature, theatre and art conventionally running from 1492 to the death of Calderón in 1681.
Category: Culture
- 1492Antonio de Nebrija publishes the first grammar of Castilian
Antonio de Nebrija publishes his Gramática de la lengua castellana in Salamanca, the first grammar of a modern European vernacular. 1492 is the conventional start of the Spanish Golden Age.
- c. 1499La Celestina is printed in Burgos
The earliest known edition of the Comedia de Calisto y Melibea, later called La Celestina and attributed to Fernando de Rojas, appears in Burgos c. 1499; some scholars date it 1500.
- 1543Boscán and Garcilaso's poems bring Italian verse to Spain
Barcelona prints Boscán's works with those of Garcilaso de la Vega, who died in 1536. Their Italian-style sonnets and hendecasyllables transform Spanish poetry.
- 1554The anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes launches the picaresque novel
La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes appears anonymously in 1554, with editions printed in Burgos, Alcalá de Henares and Antwerp. It founds the picaresque genre of rogue narrators.
- 1569Alonso de Ercilla publishes the first part of La Araucana
The first part of Alonso de Ercilla's epic poem La Araucana is printed in Madrid in 1569. It recounts the Spanish war against the Mapuche in Chile, in which Ercilla fought.
- 1569Casiodoro de Reina publishes the first complete Spanish Bible
In 1569 Casiodoro de Reina, a former Spanish monk turned Protestant, prints the first complete Spanish Bible in Basel, the 'Biblia del Oso'. Cipriano de Valera revises it in 1602, the basis of the Reina-Valera.
- 1579The Corral de la Cruz opens as Madrid's first permanent theatre
Built in 1579, the Corral de la Cruz becomes Madrid's first permanent playhouse. Such open-air corrales de comedias gave Golden Age drama a stable public stage.
- 1599Mateo Alemán publishes Guzmán de Alfarache
The first part of Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache appears in Madrid in 1599. A bestseller across Europe, it popularises the picaresque novel after Lazarillo de Tormes.
- 1605Cervantes publishes the first part of Don Quixote
El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha is published in Madrid in 1605. Often called the first modern novel, it parodies chivalric romances and is the Golden Age's best-known work.
- 1609Lope de Vega sets out his rules for the new Spanish drama
Lope de Vega's verse treatise Arte nuevo de hacer comedias (1609) defends mixing tragedy and comedy and breaking the classical unities. It codifies the comedia nueva.
- 1611Covarrubias publishes the Tesoro de la lengua castellana
Sebastián de Covarrubias's Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española appears in Madrid in 1611, the first major dictionary of Spanish, with etymologies and cultural lore.
- 1613Cervantes publishes the Novelas ejemplares
Miguel de Cervantes publishes twelve short stories as the Novelas ejemplares in Madrid in 1613, bringing the Italian novella to Spanish literature in an original form.
- c. 1613Luis de Góngora writes the Soledades, peak of culteranismo
Góngora composes the Soledades c. 1613, a dense, Latinate poem that circulates in manuscript. It defines culteranismo and sparks a long literary feud with Quevedo.
- 1615Cervantes publishes the second part of Don Quixote
The Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha appears in Madrid in 1615, a year before Cervantes died, answering a spurious 1614 sequel by 'Avellaneda'.
- 1626Quevedo's picaresque novel El Buscón is published
Francisco de Quevedo's satirical picaresque novel El Buscón is first printed in Zaragoza in 1626, though written much earlier, c. 1604. It is a masterpiece of conceptismo.
- c. 1630Tirso de Molina's El burlador de Sevilla introduces Don Juan
El burlador de Sevilla, attributed to Tirso de Molina and dated c. 1630, stages the first literary version of the Don Juan legend, a seducer punished by a stone guest.
- c. 1635Calderón de la Barca writes La vida es sueño
Pedro Calderón de la Barca's philosophical drama La vida es sueño, written c. 1635 and printed in 1636, explores fate and free will. It is a high point of Spanish Baroque theatre.
- May 25, 1681Calderón de la Barca dies, closing the Golden Age
Pedro Calderón de la Barca dies in Madrid on 25 May 1681. Many scholars take his death as the cultural end of the Spanish Golden Age; others end it at the 1659 Treaty of the Pyrenees.