The dual process of continuity and transformation that characterizes
the relationship between Renaissance and Baroque is nowhere more evident than in Golden Age aesthetics. The conception of beauty as the
result predominantly of proportion and harmony remains constant. What
changes are the effects sought, the desire for novelty and surprise leading
poets like Gongora and Quevedo to draw even more heavily than their ;
Renaissance predecessors on Latin syntax (with hyperbaton, or complicated word order, becoming a defining characteristic of Gongora’s style ;
in particular), neologisms, and complex conceits to create a dense textual
surface. Difficulty rather than clarity was the desired aim, an aim consciously grounded in a pronounced social and literary elitism. Gracian’s ;
Agudeza y arte de ingenio (“Wit and the Art of Ingenuity,” 1642/1648)
well illustrates this shift in aesthetic emphasis: many of its examples are
drawn from sixteenth-century poets, but the qualities praised are incisive wit and the epigrammatic presentation of striking conceits. In other
words, the seventeenth century prized certain qualities of fifteenth- and
sixteenth-century verse above others and in foregrounding these theorized them into a new aesthetic. What the new aesthetic of wit with its
central concepts of difficulty, surprise, novelty, and wonder encapsulates
is the aim of Baroque literature to engage the senses and minds of the
reader/spectator, a desire also evident in its far greater dynamism and
metatextuality. As a result Spanish literature becomes more sensual in
its imagery, more visceral in its descriptions, and more theatrical in its
conception of the self.
