19th Century Spanish Literature: Romanticism, Realism, and Naturalism
19th Century Spanish Literature
Costumbrismo
Ramon de Mesonero Romanos
Madrid, his hometown. Work: Scenes of Marriage.
Mariano José de Larra
Father of journalism. Works: Diligence, You Old Castilian, and Again Tomorrow.
Serafín Estébanez Calderón
Work: Scenes of Andalusia.
Romantic Novel
Influences of European novelists on our novelists: Chateaubriand, Fielding, Daniel Defoe, and Sir Walter Scott. Lord Byron, Victor Hugo (Les Misérables), Alexandre Dumas, Larra, and Gil y Carrasco.
Women writers: Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (Two Women) and Rosalía de Castro (The Daughter of the Sea) created sentimental novels.
Fernán Caballero
The writer Cecilia Böhl de Faber. Her work: The Seagull.
Literary Realism
Influenced by Stendhal (Red and Black), Charles Dickens (David Copperfield), and Honoré de Balzac (Human Comedy).
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
King of the stories. His work: The Three-Cornered Hat.
Juan Valera
His most famous novels: Pepita Jiménez and Juanita la Larga.
José María de Pereda
From Cantabria. Works: Customs of the Mountain, Peñas Arriba, and Sotileza.
Benito Pérez Galdós
From the Canary Islands. He wrote the National Episodes (42 volumes), including Trafalgar. One of his thesis novels was Doña Perfecta. His contemporary novels: Fortunata and Jacinta, Nazarín, Misericordia, and Miau.
Naturalism
Naturalism, created by the French writer Émile Zola, refers to biological determinism.
Emilia Pardo Bazán
From A Coruña. Works: Los Pazos de Ulloa and Mother Nature.
Leopoldo Alas, “Clarín”
From Zamora. Great critic. Works: La Regenta (The Regent’s Wife) is one of the best Spanish novels of the nineteenth century. He also wrote short stories and the novella, ¡Adiós, Cordera! (Goodbye, Cordera!).
Armando Palacio Valdés
From Asturias. Works: Martha and Mary, Sister San Sulpicio, and The Lost Village.
Vicente Blasco Ibáñez
From Valencia. Works: The Garden of Valencia, Rice and Tarts, The Cabin, Among Orange Trees, Reeds and Mud, and Blood and Sand. Around World War I: The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (plague, famine, death, and war).
Poetry in the Second Half of the 19th Century
Short poetic forms, themes such as politics, feelings, Christian morality, philosophy, daily life, or regionalism. Ramón de Campoamor with his works: Dolores and Humoradas; Gaspar Núñez de Arce from Valladolid; and Gabriel y Galán from Salamanca with his works Castellanas and Extremeñas. Vicente Medina from Murcia and Luis Chamizo.
Theater in the 19th Century
Manuel Bretón de los Herreros
His theater offers a satirical look at the customs of the time. Play: The Hair in the Paddock.
High Comedy
High comedy is called realist drama, with psychological analysis of characters and a moral or didactic purpose. Works: Locura de Amor by Manuel Tamayo y Baus.
José Echegaray
His work is significant in the 19th-century Spanish theater.
Zarzuela
Zarzuela was the most popular genre. La Gran Vía and La Verbena de la Paloma by Tomás Bretón and Federico Chueca, and Agua, Azucarillos y Aguardiente by Federico Chueca.
Scholarship and Criticism
Marcelino Menéndez y Pelayo
He reviewed Spanish history and literature, defending a traditional and Catholic Spain, and fought for the progress of Spain. Works: History of Aesthetic Ideas in Spain.
Lyric Poetry in Romanticism
The soul of nature and inner self. Innovation is also shown in the verses, rhythms, and stanzas. The topics are predominantly traditional (love, loneliness, death) and the expression of feelings. The verses are filled with intimacy, sincerity, and emotion, with vocative interjections, varied sentences and punctuation marks, and strong, emphatic adjectives.
José de Espronceda
From Badajoz. The model romantic rebel poet. His works: The Student of Salamanca, El Diablo Mundo (including Teresa’s Song and The Executioner), and The Pirate’s Song, with its attractive character and cry for freedom, alternation of voices and exalted language, varied metrics and stanzas, acute rhyme, and vigorous, colorful, and expressive imagery.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
From Seville. His poetry is intimate and delicate, winged and dreamy, sensitive and intimate in character, influenced by the German poet Heine. His verse is light and stripped of artifice, with simple words that speak of inspiration, poetry, love, pain, and death. Hypersensitivity. Legends: Maese Pérez, the Organist. Works: The Death of the Souls, Moonbeam, Miserere, and Green Eyes. Bécquer’s art is innovative. His lyric has a tenuous and delicate musicality, a combination of major and minor art, and an intimate and direct treatment. The influence of Bécquer’s lyric, the greatest poet of the century, has been instrumental in Spanish and Latin American contemporary poetry.
Jacint Verdaguer and the Renaixença
Catalan poet. Works: L’Atlàntida.
Rosalía de Castro and the Rexurdimento
Works: Cantares Gallegos, Follas Novas, and On the Banks of the Sar.
Romantic Narrative Poems
- The Student of Salamanca, the legend of Felix de Montemar, a Don Juan.
- Historical Romance: A Loyal Castilian (Duque de Rivas)
- Legends of Zorrilla: A Good Judge, Best Witness, Margaret, the Keeper, Captain Montoya (Don Juan)
Characteristics of Romantic Drama in Spain
- The romantic drama flies the flag of freedom as an aesthetic principle.
- It ranges between 3 and 5 acts.
- It breaks the unities of time and place.
- It mixes the tragic with the comic and prose with verse.
- Its main theme is love, amorous passion, and the sense of freedom.
- Time and space are identified; the action is situated in the Middle Ages.
- It focuses the action and the viewer on the romantic hero and heroine.
- The tension is expressed in a language of love marked by a deep lyricism.
- The action is dynamic and romantic.
Romantic Playwrights
Francisco Martínez de la Rosa
The Conspiracy of Venice.
Mariano José de Larra
Macías, which offers the theatrical version of the novel, El Doncel de Don Enrique el Doliente.
The Duke of Rivas (Ángel de Saavedra)
From Cordoba.
Antonio García Gutiérrez
From Cadiz. The Troubadour.
Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch
The Lovers of Teruel.
José Zorrilla
The Shoemaker and the King, The Dagger of the Goth, Traitor, Unacknowledged and Martyr (his most popular), and Don Juan Tenorio (a recreation).