Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Golden Age?
My Hispanic Civ/Culture class just finished studying and discussing the Spanish Middle Ages. We are now into the so-called Spanish Golden Age. Maybe it's just me, but can anyone defend this label given the increased and ultimately absolute intolerance, fanaticism, more religious war, and economic mismanagement seen between 1500 and 1700? I understand the term may be more applicable to literature and fine arts, but I hardly see the relevance to political and social life. Is this still a valid term in critical circles? Is the term now Early Modern? The Middle Ages seem more golden than what immediately succeeded this period.
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My experience has been that the term “Golden Age” is used in two slightly different ways. The first usage describes the literary output now considered canonical published from 1500 to 1700 (you know, Garcilaso to Calderon; well, let’s throw Sor Juana in there to be inclusive). This is why you sometimes see the term in the plural: “Siglos de oro.” Otherwise, some use “Golden Age” to refer only to the (primarily) seventeenth-century literary flourishing running from Cervantes to Calderon. And you pointed out the paradox of this literary flourishing occurring during a period of political and economic decay. I have never seen this term applied to the econo-political situation of Spain, nor to any other of the arts but literature, during this time in Spain. But there could be more to this than I have described.
“Early modern” seems to be de rigueur these days. I still find myself mostly using “Renaissance” and “Baroque” to refer to Spanish Golden Age lit.
To me the worst thing about "Golden Age" is that it smacks of either Socrates or of Rockefeller and Carnegie (or is that the gilded age?).
There is something a bit geeky and 19th-century about it, a kind of arcane jargon only the cognoscenti understand. It definitely throws the 18th century, for instance, under the bus. It shows a great interest in schematizing and reducing history to neat temporal/conceptual packages, and it also reflects a kind of imperial nostalgia which I'm not sure is 100% admirable. I'm with Mayere in the use of Renaissance and Boroque.
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