Romantic Drama, Realism, and Key Spanish Authors

Posted on Jan 25, 2025 in English Studies

Characteristics of Romantic Drama

Romantic drama is characterized by the following:

Legendary themes: Chivalry and other legendary themes are common, always presented dramatically.
Protagonist’s fate: The protagonist is marked by a strange and mysterious destiny, often boasting gallantry and cynicism.
Atmosphere: Abundant sepulchral night scenes, challenges, and suicides.
Rejection of classical rules: Rejection of the classical rules of the three unities (time, place, and action).
Mixing of genres: A mix of tragic and comic elements.
Structure: Division into five acts.
Use of polimetry: Variation in metrical forms.
Emotional impact: Romantic drama aspires to move the audience, not to indoctrinate.

Realism was a cultural movement of the 19th-century bourgeois society, which rejected Romantic fantasy and idealism. Its main features are:

Observation and accurate description: The basic principle of Realism is accurate observation and description of reality. Writers documented themselves on the ground.
Familiar settings: Realistic authors write about what they know, often focusing on nearby locations.
Social and political criticism: This intention varies according to the ideology of each writer. Conservative authors describe reality to show its degradation and advocate a return to traditional values.
Somber and sober style: Realists reject the ideal stylistic rhetoric of Romanticism. The style is accurate.
Predilection for the novel: The novel was the literary genre par excellence, considered the most suitable to reflect reality in its entirety.
Individual or collective actors: The protagonists of the novel are either individuals (psychological focus) or large social groups (social ambiance).
Omniscient narrator: The narrator manages all the threads of the story.
Didacticism: Authors often intend to give the reader a moral or social lesson.
Linear structure: Events tend to occur in a linear fashion.
Detailed descriptions: Descriptions are extremely detailed.
Colloquial language: Language is close to conversation, elevating it to the category of literary language.

Early novels: These are thesis novels that do not hide his sympathy for liberal Spain (e.g., Doña Perfecta, Marianela).
Contemporary Spanish novels: Novels from the public, such as La desheredada. His most ambitious work is Fortunata y Jacinta.
Latest novels: In 1889, Tristana, all tested original narrative procedures in Misericordia.
Episodios Nacionales: 46 novels arranged in 5 series of 10 episodes each, except the last, which remained unfinished with only 6.

Born in 1808 and died in 1842, Espronceda was a prominent Romantic poet.

Lyric poems: “Canción del pirata”, “El verdugo”, “El mendigo”, “Canto del cosaco”
Major poems: El estudiante de Salamanca, El diablo mundo

Irrationalism: Refuses that reason can fully explain reality.
Evasion: The Romantic seeks escape from this world that he does not like. This can lead to the past, such as the Middle Ages, or to legendary or exotic places such as the East.
Naturalism: A literary current that developed during the last third of the 19th century, mainly in France. Championed by Émile Zola, it aimed to make literature, like the natural sciences, another science that studies the social environment from the outside. Literature was to analyze human behavior scientifically, following the principles of observation and experimentation.