Romanticism in Spanish literature

Romanticism is a revolutionary movement affecting all aspects in life, which in the arts breaks from the traditions of Neoclassicism, favouring ideas of fantasy, imagination and the spirit's irrational power. Neoclassicism is the style still adopted by some Spanish authors today, but many who started as what could be defined as neoclassical writers converted to romanticism, such as the Duke of Rivas or José de Espronceda. Others have been romantics since starting writing.

The origin of the term "romanticism" is far from clear, and furthermore, the evolution of the movement was different in each country. In the 17th century the term was used in England to refer to the "unreal". Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) employed it in the sense of "emotional" and "amorous". James Boswell (1740–1795) used it to describe the appearance of Corsica. Romantic appears as a generic adjective referring to "passionate" and "emotional". In Germany, however, it was used by Johann Gottfried Herder as a synonym for "medieval". The tern romanhaft ("fantastical") was replaced by romantisch, which had more emotional and passionate connotations. In France, Jean-Jacques Rousseau used it in a description of Lake Geneva. In 1798, the Dictionary of the Royal Academy listed the common and literary senses of romantique. Spain had to wait until 1805 for the word romancista to appear. The years 1814 to 1818, saw, through successive controversies, the tentative use of the terms romanesco, romancesco, románico, and romántico.

The forerunners of Romanticism, which was to spread throughout Europe and the Americas, were Rousseau (1712–1778), the French philosopher, and the German playwright Goethe (1749–1832). Under the influence of these two figures, the Romantics set out to create works that were less perfect and regular, but more profound and intimate. They looked into mystery and insisted on the rights of sentiment. Their motto was liberty in all aspects of life.

Spanish Romanticism

Spanish Romanticism arrived late and lasted only for a short but intense period, since in the second half of the 19th century it was supplanted by Realism, whose nature was antithetical to that of Romantic literature.

Traditional and Revolutionary Romanticism

Portrait of Lord Byron by Thomas Phillips, 1813.

In Spain, Romanticism is thought of as complex and confusing, with great contradictions that range from rebellion and revolutionary ideas to the return of the Catholic and monarchial tradition. With respect to political liberty, some understood it merely as the restoration of the ideological, patriotic, and religious values that the 18th century rationalists had tried to suppress. They exalted Christianity, throne, and country as supreme values. In this "traditional Romanticism" camp one would place Walter Scott in Scotland, Chateaubriand in France, and the Duke of Rivas and José Zorrilla in Spain. It was based on the ideology of the restoration of absolute monarchy in Spain, which originated after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, and defended the traditional values represented by Church and State. On the other hand, other Romantics, as free citizens, fought the entire established order in religion, art, and politics. They proclaimed the rights of the individual over against society and the law. They represented "revolutionary" or "liberal" Romanticism, and their most notable members were Lord Byron, in England, Victor Hugo, in France, and José de Espronceda, in Spain. The movement's three underlying ideas were: the quest for and justification of "irrational" understanding, which reason denies, Hegelian dialectic, and historicism.

Costumbrism

Costumbrism focused on contemporary life, largely from the point of view of the "common" people, and expressed itself in pure, correct langauge. The principal author in the Costumbrist style was Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, situated on the margins of Romanticism, and in an ironic position in relation to it. Costumbrism, born out of Romanticism, but as a manifestation of nostalgia for the values and customs of the past, contributed to the decadence of the Romantic movement and the rise of Realism, as it became bourgeois and turned into a style of description.

Historic context

The Romantic period encompasses the first half of the 19th century, a time of high political tension. The conservatives defended their privileges, but the liberals and progressives fought to supplant them. This opened the way for the laity and Freemasonry to enjoy great influence. Traditional Catholic thought defended itself against the freethinkers and the followers of the German philosopher Karl C. F. Krause. The working class unleashed protest movements with anarchist and socialist tendencies, accompanied by strikes and violence. While Europe experienced significant industrial development and cultural enrichment, Spain presented the image of a somewhat backward country that was always apart from the rest of Europe.

Characteristics of Romanticism

• Rejection of Neoclassicism. Faced with the scrupulous rigor and order with which rules were observed in the 18th century, the romantic writers combined the genres and verses of distinct media, at times mixing verse and prose; in the theater the rule of three units (place, space and time) was despised, and they alternated the comic with the dramatic.

Painting by Caspar David Friedrich.

• Subjectivism. Whatever the type of work, the passionate soul of the author poured into it all of its feelings of dissatisfaction with a world that limited and frustrated the expression of its longings and worries, in relation to love, society, and country alike. They identified nature with spirit, and expressed it as melancholy, gloom, mystery, and darkness, by contrast with the neo-Classicists, who barely showed interest in the natural world. Cravings for passionate love, the desire for happiness and the possession of the infinite, caused in the Romantics a disheartenment, an immense disappointment that sometimes brought them to suicide, as in the case of Mariano José de Larra.
• Attraction of the nocturnal and mysterious. The romantics place their sorrowful and defrauded feelings in mysterious or melancholic places, such as ruins, forests, and cemeteries... In the same manner they feel attracted toward the supernatural, that which escapes any logic, like miracles, apparitions, visions from beyond the grave, the diabolical and witchcraft...
• Flight from the world. Their disgust toward the bourgeois society that they were forced to live in caused the Romantics to try to turn their back on their circumstances, imagining past eras in which their ideals prevailed, or taking inspiration from the exotic. By contrast with the neo-Classicists, who admired Greco-Roman antiquity, the Romantics preferred the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Their favorite modes of expression were the novel, legends, and historical drama.

Beginnings

Romanticism came to Spain through Andalusia and Catalonia.

In Andalucía, the Prussian consul in Cádiz, Juan Nicolás Böhl de Faber, father of novelist Fernán Caballero, published a series of articles between 1818 and 1819 in the Diario Mercantil (Mercantile Daily) of Cádiz, in which he defended Spanish theatre of the Siglo de Oro, and was widely attacked by the neo-Classicists. Against him were José Joaquín de Mora and Antonio Alcalá Galiano, who argued from a traditionalist, antiliberal, and absolutist point of view. Böhl de Faber's ideas were incompatible with theirs (since they were still tied to the Age of Enlightenment), despite the fact that they represented European Literary Modernism.

In Catalonia, El Europeo was a journal published in Barcelona from 1823 to 1824 by two Italian editors, one Englishman, and the young Catalans Bonaventura Carles Aribau and Ramón López Soler. This publication defended moderate traditionalist Romanticism following Böhl's example, totally rejecting the virtues of Neo-Classicism. An exposition of the Romantic ideology appeared for the first time in its pages, in an article by Luigi Monteggia, titled Romanticismo.

Poetry

Sculpture dedicated to Bécquer in Sevilla.

The romantic poets created their works in the midst of a fury of emotions, forming verses out of whatever they felt or thought. Critics have found in their works a lyricism of great power, but at the same time vulgar, uninspiring verse.

Some of the characteristics of Romantic poetry are:

• The I, the inner self. José de Espronceda, setting down in his Canto a Teresa a painful confession of love and disappointment, managed with great skill to translate his feelings into poetry.
• Passionate love, with its sudden and total surrenders and quick abandonments. The agony and the ecstasy.
• Inspiration by historical and mythical subjects.
• Religion, though frequently it is through a revolt against consequent compassion, even to the extent of exalting the devil.
• Social vindications (new value placed on marginalized people, such as beggars).
• Nature, displayed in all its manifestations and variations. They often gave their poems mysterious settings, such as cemetaries, storms, the raging sea, etc.
• Satire, frequently associated with political and literary events.

It is also a sign that the new spirit affected the creation of verse. Before the mountain of neoclassic repetition of songs and lyrics, poets proclaimed their right to use all existing variations on meter, to assimilate those variations from other lanugages and to create their own where it was necessary. The romanticism continued here, as in other aspects, to the audacious modernists of the end of the century.

José de Espronceda

Main article: José de Espronceda

José de Espronceda

Espronceda was born in 1808 in Pajares de la Vega, located near Almendralejo, Badajoz. He founded the secret society of Los numantinos, whose aim was to "demolish the absolute government". Because of this society, Espronceda suffered much ostracism. At age 18 he fled to Lisbon and joined with a group of liberal exiles. There he met Teresa Mancha, the woman with whom he lived in London. After a shaken political performance, he returned to Spain in 1833. He lived a dissipated life, full of journeys and adventures, which ultimately resulted in the death of Teresa Mancha in 1838. He was at the point of marrying another lover, when in 1842 he passed away in Madrid.

Batallas, tempestades, amoríos,

por mar y tierra, lances, descripciones

de campos y ciudades, desafíos

y el desastre y furor de las pasiones,

goces, dichas, aciertos, desvaríos,

con algunas morales reflexiones

acerca de la vida y de la muerte,

de mi propia cosecha, que es mi fuerte.

Espronceda cultivated the general literary principals, such as the historical novel, with Sancho Saldaña o El castellano de Cuéllar (1834); the epic poem, with El Pelayo; but his most important works were his poems. He published Poesías in 1840 after returning from exile. It is a collection of poems of unequalled character that unites his youthful neoclassic poems with other, more exalted romantic poems. These last were the most important, of those which romanticize the marginalized: Canción del pirata, El verdugo, El mendigo, Canto del cosaco. His most important works were El estudiante de Salamanca (1839) and El diablo mundo:

• El estudiante de Salamanca (1839): It is a composition that consists of some two thousand verses of different lengths. It narrates the crimes of don Félix de Montemar, whose lover Elvira dies of heartsickness when he abandons her. One night, he sees her ghost and follows it through the streets and contemplates his own burial. In the house of the dead, he marries the corpse of Elvira, and dies.
• El diablo mundo: This work was never finished. It consists of 8,100 verses of various meters, and it seems to be an epic of the human life. The seventh canto (Canto a Teresa) occupies the better part of the poem, and in it he evokes his love for Teresa and laments her death.

Other poets

Carolina Coronado

In spite of the brevity of romantic lyricism in Spain, there arose other notable poets that should be mentioned, such as the Barcelonan Juan Arolas (1805 † (1873), the Gallego Nicomedes Pastor Díaz (1811 † 1863), Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (1814 † 1873) and Pablo Piferrer (1818 † 1848). Piferrer, in spite of writing only in Castillian, was one of the precursors of the romantic movement in Cataluña.

Carolina Coronado (Almendralejo, 1823 † Lisboa, 1911) merits special mention. She spent a great part of her childhood in the remote countryside, and from a very young age showed a love of poetry. She married a North American diplomat and lived in various foreign coutries. Family disgrace prompted her to seek solitude and she retired to Lisbon, where she died in 1911. Her most important work is Poesías (1852).

Prose

During the Romantic period, there is a great desire of fictional adventure and mystery novels, however, Spanish production thereof is scarce, limited to occasional translations of foreign novels. There were more than a thousand translations that circulated in Spain before 1850, belonging to writers such as Alexander Dumas, Chateaubriand, Walter Scott, Victor Hugo, etc., in historic, sentimental, chivalrous, melodramatic genres... Spanish prose essentially consisted of the novel, scientific or erudite prose, journalism, and the intense cultivation of custombrismo.

The first quarter of the period finds four types of novels: the moral or educative, the sentimental, the horror, and the anticlerical. The most purely romantic of these is the anticlerical novel. However, the romantic influence is principally seen in the historic novel. During the first quarter of the century, four distinct types of novels developed: the moral and educational novel, the sentimental novel, the terror novel and the anticlerical novel. Of all these, the most purely romantic is the anticlerical. However, the romantic influence would shape, principally, the historical novel.

Historical novel

The historical novel developed as an imitation of Walter Scott (80 of his works have been translated), whose most representative work is Ivanhoe. The works fall into two categories: liberal and moderate. Within the liberal school exist an anticlerical current and a populist current. On the other hand, the moderate school ends, on occasions, with novels of traditional, Catholic exaltations. The most outstanding Spanish authors are:

• Enrique Gil y Carrasco (Villafranca del Bierzo, 1815 † Berlín 1846. Lawyer and diplomat, he was the author of El señor de Bembibre, the best Spanish historical novel, written as an imitation of Walter Scott.
• Francisco Navarro Villoslada (1818 † 1895), who wrote a series of historical novels when the romantic genre was on the decline and the height of Realism was just beginning. His novels were inspired by Vascan traditions, acclimated in the medieval epoch. His most famous work is Amaya, o los vascos en el siglo VIII, in which the Vascos and the Visigoths ally themselves against the invasion of the Muslims.
• Along with these two authors, it is also possible to emphasize the contributions to the historical genre made by Mariano José de Larra, Serafín Estébanez Calderón and Francisco Martínez de la Rosa.

The scientist prose

The majority of these works originated from the discussions in the impelling assembly of the Constitution of Cádiz. The most representative authors were Juan Donoso Cortés (1809 † 1853) and Jaime Balmes Urpía (1810 † 1848):

• Juan Donoso Cortés came from the liberal school, though later he came to defend Catholic and authoritarian concepts. His most important work is the Ensayo sobre el catolicismo, el liberalismo y el socialismo (Treatise about Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism), published in 1851. His style has a solemn tone and affect, and provoked vibrant controversies.
• Jaime Balmes Urpía, however, situated himself in the conservative, Catholic sector. Of his prolific works, emphasis must be placed on El protestantismo comparado con el catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilización europea (Protestantism compared with Catholicism in their relations with European civilization) (1842) and El criterio (1845).

Regional Customs

Between 1820 and 1870, Spain developed the literatura costumbrista (customary liturature), which manifested itself in the Cuadro de Costumbres, or description of regional customs, a prose article of little extension. These descriptions of regional customs are presented without arguement or reduce the arguement to an outline, describing the lifestyle of the era, a popular custom or a personal stereotype. In many cases (like the articles of Larra), the articles contain elevated satirical content.

Costumbrismo (or customism) developed by way of the romantic desire to emphasize the different and the peculiar, induced by the similar French affinity. Thousands of customism articles were published, though Spain limited the development of the novel, since the narration and individual characters predominated in this genre, while in the description of regional customs authors were limited to generic descriptions of personalities (bullfighter, chestnut seller, water carrier, etc.). Large collective compilations of articles of this genre were created, like Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (Spaniards painted by themselves), (Madrid: Ignacio Boix, 1843-1844 2 vols., reprinted in one volume in 1851). In it are emphasized the native of Madrid Ramón Mesonero Romanos and the native of Analucía Serafín Estébanez Calderón.

Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, El curioso parlante (The curious speaker) Mesonero Romanos was born and died in Madrid (1803-1882). He belonged to the Spanish Academy and was a Pacific bourgeois. His thoughts were anti-romantic and he was a great observer of the life that surrounded him. He was famous under the pseudonym of The curious speaker.

His principal literary production is dedicated to customism, however, he wrote Memorias de un setentón (Memories of a 70-year-old), an allusion to the people and successes he knew between 1808 and 1850. He reunited his descriptions of regional customs in the volumes Panorama matritense and Escenas matritenses.

Serafín Estébanez Calderón, El solitario (The solitary one) Calderón was born in Málaga (1799) and died in Madrid (1867)). He was at the forefront of high political positions. Though he is most known for his conservative tendency, in his childhood he was liberal. He published diverse poems and a historical novel, Cristianos y moriscos (Christians and Moors), though his most famous work is the joining of descriptions of customs Escenas analuzas (Andalucían scenes) (1848), with descriptions like El bolero, La feria de Mairena, Un baile en Triana, Los Filósofos del figón...

Journalism: Mariano José de Larra

Mariano José de Larra

Throughout the 19th century, the role of the newspaper is decisive. The Barcelona publication El Europeo (The European) (1823-1824) published articles about romanticism and, through the pubication, Spain came to know the names of Byron, Schiller and Walter Scott. However, the press was also an arm of the political fight. In this sense, we must emphasize the political satire press of Trienio Liberal (El Zurriago, La Manopla), where there appeared not only social themes, but also customism outlines which were clear precedents of Larra's production.

After the death of Fernando VII in 1833, many important changes occurred in journalism. The emigrants after the absolutist reaction of 1823 returned and together with the new generation (that of José de Espronceda and Larra) they would mark the style of the era, though they had learned much in their years of exile from the advanced presses of the English and the French. In 1836, the French Girardin initiated in his newspaper La Presse a custom which would have a staggering and lasting success: that of publishing novels by delivery. The Spanish press, always with their eyes on the press of their neighbors, hurried to copy this initiative; however, the height of this era in Spain would be between 1845 and 1855.

Mariano José de Larra, El pobrecito hablador (The poor little talker) Mariano José de Larra (Madrid, 1809 † id., 1837), son of a liberal exile, soon conquered fame as a journalist. His character was less than agreeable. Mesonero Romanos, his friend, spoke of "his innate mordacidad, which carried few sympathies". At twenty he married, but the marriage failed. With total success as a writer, at 28 years of age, Larra committed suicide with a pistol to the head, it seems, for a woman with whom he maintained an illicit love affair.

Though Larra is famous for his newspaper works, he also worked in other genres, like poetry, short neoclassics and satire (Sátira contra los vicios de la corte, or "Satire against the vices of the court"); the theatre, with the historical tragedy Macías; and finally, the historical novel, with El doncel de don Enrique el Doliente, about a Gallego troubador who kills a husband blinded by jealousy.

Larra's Newspaper Articles

Larra wrote more than 200 articles, behind the façade of diverse pseudonyms: Andrés Niporesas, El pobrecito hablador and above all, Fígaro. His works can be divided into three groups: customs, literary articles y political articles.

• In the customism articles, Larra satirized the form of Spanish life. He felt a great pain for his imperfect mother country. Emphasis should be placed on Vuelva usted mañana ("Come back tomorrow" - a satire of public officials), Corridas de toros ("Bull races"), Casarse pronto y mal ("Get married soon and badly", with autobiographic undertones) and El castellano grosero ("The crude Castillian", against the crudity of the countryside).
• His French education prevented him from fostering his neoclassic tastes, and this is reflected in his 'literary articles, where he criticized the romantic works of the era.
• In his political articles, his progressive, liberal education is clearly reflected, with hostile articles about absolutism and traditionalism. In some of these, Larra reveals his revolutionary exultation, as in the article which says "Asesinatos por asesinatos, ya que los ha de haber, estoy por los del pueblo" ("Murders by murders, since we must have them, I am for those of the people").

The theatre

El teatro neoclásico no logró calar en los gustos de los españoles. A comienzos del siglo XIX seguían aplaudiéndose las obras del Siglo de Oro. Estas obras eran despreciadas por los neoclásicos por no sujetarse a la regla de las tres unidades (acción, lugar y tiempo) y mezclar lo cómico con lo dramático. Sin embargo aquellas obras atraían fuera de España, precisamente por no sujetarse al ideal que defendían los neoclásicos.

El Romanticismo triunfa en el teatro español con La conjuración de Venecia, de Francisco Martínez de la Rosa; El Trovador, de Antonio García Gutiérrez; Los amantes de Teruel, de Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch; pero el año clave es 1835, cuando se estrena Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, del Duque de Rivas (1791-1865). Lo más cultivado es el drama. Todas las obras contienen elementos líricos, dramáticos y novelescos. Impera en el teatro la libertad en todos los aspectos:

• Estructura: La regla de las tres unidades, impuesta en la Ilustración desaparece. Los dramas, por ejemplo, suelen tener cinco actos en verso, o en prosa y en verso mezclados, con métrica variada. Si en las obras neoclásicas las acotaciones escénicas no se aceptaban, esto no sucede durante el Romanticismo, pues las acotaciones son abundantes. El monólogo cobra nuevamente fuerza, por ser el mejor medio para expresar las luchas internas de los personajes.
• Escenarios: La acción teatral gana dinamismo al utilizarse variedad de lugares en una misma representación. Los autores basan sus obras en lugares típicos del romanticismo, como cementerios, ruinas, paisajes solitarios, prisiones, etc. La naturaleza se muestra acorde con los sentimientos y estados de ánimo de los personajes.
• Temática: El teatro romántico prefiere los temas legendarios, aventureros, caballerescos o histórico-nacionales, con el amor y la libertad como estandarte. Abundan las escenas nocturnas, los desafíos, personajes encubiertos y misteriosos, suicidios, muestras de gallardía o de cinismo. Los acontecimientos se suceden de forma vertiginosa. En cuanto al fondo de las obras, no aspira a aleccionar, como pretendían los neoclásicos en sus obras, sino a conmover.
• Personajes: El número de personajes aumenta en las obras. El héroe masculino suele ser misterioso y valiente. La heroína es inocente y fiel, con una pasión intensa. Pero ambos están marcados por un destino fatal. La muerte es la liberación. Se da más importancia al dinamismo de las acciones que al análisis de la psicología de los personajes.

Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas

Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas

Main article: Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas

Ángel de Saavedra y Ramírez de Baquedano (Córdoba, 1791 † Madrid, 1865) struggled against the French invasion as a young man and gained political prominence as a progressivist. He was condemned to death for his liberal views but managed to escape to England.

In Malta he met an English critic who taught him to appreciate Classical theater and set the stage for him to become a Romantic. He lived in France during his exile, and returned to Spain a decade later in 1834. By his return, the Neo-classical liberal had morphed into a conservative Romantic.

Ángel de Saavedra held a number of important public posts. Like many contemporary writers, he began by adopting a neo-classical aesthetic in the lyrical (Poesías, 1874) and dramatic genres (Lanuza, 1822). He gradually incorporated Romantic elements into his work as can be seen in works like El desterrado. His conversion became complete in Romances históricos.

Rivas' fame is largely based on his work Leyendas and especially Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, a play which premiered in the Teatro del Príncipe (the modern-day Teatro Español) in Madrid in 1835. 1,300 spectatores attended and witnessed the first Spanish Romantic drama, featuring such novelties as combining prose and verse.

José Zorrilla

José Zorrilla

Main article: José Zorrilla

Born in Valladolid, 1817 and died in Madrid, in 1893. He started his career in literature by reading verses at the funeral of Larra, with which he earned great fame. Contrajo marriage with a widow sixteen years younger than him, but it failed and, fleeing from her, he went to France and then to Mexico in 1855, where the emperor Maximiliano named him director of the National Theater. Upon returning to Spain in 1866 he was greeted with enthusiasm. He married again and, with constant monetary penuries, he had no other remedy but to sell his works unprofitably, like Don Juan Tenorio. The courts granted him a pension in 1886.

Works

The literature of Zorrilla is prolific. His poetry reaches a zenith with Readings, which are small dramas sung as narration in verse. The most important of these readings are Margarita la Tornera and To a good judge, a better witness.

However, his recognition is owed more to his dramatic works. Dramas that stand out include The Shoemaker and the King, about the death of the king don Pedro; Traitor, Confessor, and Martyr, about the famous pastelero of Madrigal, que se hizo pasar por don Sebastián, king of Portugal; Don Juan Tenorio (1844), the most famous of his works, represents a tradition in many Spanish cities at the beginning of November. It discusses the theme of the famous joker of Seville, written about previously by Tirso de Molina (17th century) and other national and foreign authors.

Other authors

Francisco Martínez de la Rosa, escritor de transición Template:AP Martínez de la Rosa (1787 † 1862), nació en Granada. Como político intervino fervientemente en las Cortes de Cádiz. Por sus ideales liberales, sufrió pena de prisión. Emigró a Francia y es nombrado jefe del Gobierno en 1833 al regresar a España. Su política de "justo medio" fracasó entre los extremismos de la izquierda y de la derecha. Sus contemporáneos le apodaron "Rosita la pastelera", aunque hubiese padecido cárcel, destierro y atentados en su lucha por la ansiada libertad.

Sus primeras obras están impregnadas de neoclasicismo, como La niña en casa y la madre en la máscara. Más tarde, al practicar el "justo medio", adoptando la nueva estética latente, escribió sus obras más importantes: Aben Humeya y La conjuración de Venecia.

Antonio García Gutiérrez Template:AP Nació en Chiclana, Cádiz, en 1813 y murió en Madrid, en 1884. De familia artesana, se dedicó a las letras y, escaso de recursos, se alistó en el ejército. En 1836 estrenó El trovador, obra que entusiasmó al público, pues le obligó a saludar desde el escenario, inaugurando en España una costumbre vigente en Francia. Gracias a sus éxitos pudo salir de la penuria económica con la que vivía. Al estallar la "Gloriosa", se unió a los revolucionarios, con un himno contra los Borbones que obtuvo una gran popularidad.

Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch Template:AP Nació y murió en Madrid (1806-1880). Hijo de un ebanista alemán y de madre andaluza, en principio se dedicó a la profesión paterna, mas consagrado al teatro, obtuvo un rotundo éxito con su obra más famosa, Los amantes de Teruel (1837). Continuó publicando cuentos, poemas y artículos de costumbre.

Manuel Bretón de los Herreros Template:AP Nació en Quel, Logroño, en 1796 y murió en Madrid, en 1873. Comenzó sus andanzas literarias muy joven, con obras como A la vejez viruelas, Muérete y verás y El pelo de la dehesa. Satirizó el Romanticismo, aunque algunos rasgos se filtran en algunas comedias, como Muérete y verás.

Postromanticism

During the second half of the nineteenth century, the movement's pre-existing interests in history and legend entered a new stage, and poetry became more sentimental and intimate. This change was due to the influence of German poetry and a renewed popular interest in Spanish poetry. The Postromantic school departed significantly from its other European contemporaries, with the exception of Heinrich Heine's German poetry.

Poetry continued to be Romantic, while prose and theater adhered more to Realism. Romantic poetry slowly lost some of its popularity due to its concentration on emotive forces. Narration declined in favor of lyricism, and poems became more personal and initimate. Rhetoric became more scarce as lyricism increased, and common themes were love and passion for the world in all of its beauty. Romantics began to experiment with new metric forms and rhythms. The homogeneity that the Romance movement enjoyed was transformed into a plurality of poetic ideas. In sum, post-Romanticism represented a transition between the Romanticism and Realism.

The most well-known poets of this period were Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Augusto Ferrán, and Rosalía de Castro. They were not particularly well-received in their contemporary society, the utilitarian and unidealistic Restoration, and were admired much less than writers who chose contemporary social themes like Ramón de Campoamor and Gaspar Núñez de Arce, though the latters have little critical relevance.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Main article: Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Born in Sevilla in 1836, Bécquer was orphaned and raised by his godmother. He dreamed of becoming a sailor but found his calling as a writer. At 18 years of age he moved to Madrid where he suffered hardships wile trying to achieve literary success. At 21 he contracted tuberculosis which would eventually carry him to the grave. He fell desperately in love with Elisa Guillén, and she returned his affections, but the couple soon separated in a taxing process for the poet. In 1861 he married Casta Esteban and worked as a columnist with a politically conservative slant. He later secured a monthly income of 500 pesetas (a large sum for the time) while working as a novel critic, but he lost the job in the revolution of 1868. He separated from his not-so-faithful wife, became disillusioned and lived a dirty and Bohemian lifestyle. In 1870 his inseparable companion and brother Valeriano died. Bécquer reconciled with Casta but passed away mere months later in 1870 in Madrid and was buried along with his brother in Sevilla.

Bécquer's prose work is contained within Leyendas, a work of twenty-one stories that are dominated by themes of mystery and the afterlife in true Romantic fashion. He also wrote Cartas desde mi celda, a collection of chronicles composed during his stay at the Veruela monastery. In a similar manner, all of Bécquer's poetry is collected in Rimas. The 79 poems are short, have 2,3, or 4 stanzas (with rare exceptions), generally employ assonant rhyme, and are written in free verse.

Rosalía de Castro

File:RosaliaDeCastro.jpg

Rosalía de Castro

Main article: Rosalía de Castro

Born in Santiago de Compostela in 1837, de Castro was the bastard child of unmarried lovers, a fact that caused an incurable bitterness in her. While living in Madrid she met and later married the Galician historian Manuel Murguía. The couple lived in various places throughout Castile, but Rosalía never felt tied to the region and ultimately managed to settle the family in Galicia. The marriage was not happy and the couple underwent economic hardship as they raised six children. She died of cancer in Iria Flavia in 1885, and her remains were buried at Santiago de Compostela, a suitable site for a lover of Galicia.

Though de Castro was not prolific in prose, she achieved notoriety with El caballero de las botas azules (The blue-booted cavalier) which had a philosophical and satirical bent. She is mostly recognized for her poetic contributions to Spanish literature. Her first books, La flor (The Flower, 1857) and A mi madre (To My Mother, 1863) possess some Romantic characteristics with Esproncedian verses. Her three most memorable works are:

• Cantares gallegos: This work was developed during Rosalía's stay in Castile while she longer for her homeland of Galicia. In Castile she felt like an exile because, according to her, there was little respect things Galician. Cantares gallegos was a work of simple poems with popular themes and rhythms. She felt nostalgia for her homeland and desired to return:

Airiños, airiños aires,

airiños da miña terra;

airiños, airiños aires,

airiños, levaime a ela.

She also vented her anger toward Castile, which she considered an exploiter of the poor laboring Galicians:

Premita Dios, castellanos,

castellanos que aborrezco,

qu'antes os gallegos morran

qu'ir a pedirvos sustento.

• Follas novas (Hojas nuevas): In the prologue of this work, Rosalía explains that her book is the product of pain and disappointment. She does not sing of the physical Galicia in these poems, but rather of her own suffering and the suffering of Galician people. She also deals with ubi sunt, in which she expresses her regret and anger over being stripped of happiness and past illusions.

Aquelas risas sin fin,

aquel brincar sin dolor,

aquela louca alegría,

¿por qué acabóu?

• En las orillas del Sar: Many critics consider this work to be the apex of Rosalía's poetry. It is the only one of the three major novels to be written in Castilian Spanish. At the time, it was held in low esteem outside of Galician territory, but the Generation of 98 brought the poems back into the limelight. In Las orillas del Sar she makes confessions about her private life, love and pain, human injustice, faith, death, eternity, etc.

Antiromantic poets

Estos poetas también pueden estar adscritos en el Realismo, dado el ocaso del movimiento romántico y su postura en contra del mismo.

Ramón de Campoamor

Main article: Ramón de Campoamor

(Navia, Asturias, 1817 † Madrid, 1901), de ideología moderada, fue gobernador civil y diputado. En su libro Poética, alega su intención de llegar al "arte por la idea". De esta forma, el poema tendrá un argumento claramente definido. También trata de realizar tales ideas en las Humoradas, en las Doloras y en los Pequeños poemas. Las humoradas son pequeños poemas escritos para álbumes y abanicos de sus amigas. Uno de ellos dice:

En este mundo traidor

nada es verdad ni mentira;

todo es según el color

del cristal con que se mira.

Las doloras tienen una pretensión filosófica, como en ¡Quién supiera escribir! o El gaitero de Gijón. En Pequeños poemas, 31 breves composiciones, Campoamor describe las trivialidades del alma de la mujer, como en El tren expreso. La corriente modernista consideraba a Campoamor como símbolo de la antipoesía, por sus pensamientos tan vulgares.

Gaspar Núñez de Arce

Main article: Gaspar Núñez de Arce

(Valladolid, 1834 † Madrid 1903). También fue gobernador civil y diputado, además de ministro. Escribió la obra teatral El haz de leña, cuya trama está ambientada en la misteriosa muerte del príncipe don Carlos, hijo de Felipe II. Sus labores poéticos más destacados son La última lamentación de lord Byron, un largo soliloquio sobre las miserias del mundo, la existencia de un ser superior y omnipotente, la política, etc., en La visión de Fray Martín Núñez de Arce presenta a Martín Lutero contemplando desde una roca las naciones que han de seguirle.

References

• This article draws heavily on the corresponding article in the Spanish-language Wikipedia, which was accessed in the version of 25 June 2006.

Bibliography

• Historia de la Literatura Española. El Romanticismo, Juan Luis Alborg, Madrid, Gredos, 1980.
• Historia de la Literatura Española. El Siglo XIX (I), Víctor García de la Concha, Madrid, Espasa Calpe, 1998.
• La Imaginación romántica, C. M. Bowra, Taurus, Madrid, 1972.
• Las Románticas, Susan Kirkpatrick, Castalia, Madrid, 1991.
• El alma romántica y el sueño, A. Béguin, Fonde de Cultura Económica, Madrid, 1993.
• El Romanticismo, Gras Balaguer, Montesinos, Barcelona, 1988.
• El romanticismo español, Vicente Llorens, Madrid, Fundación Juan March, Castalia, 1983.
• El romanticismo español, Ricardo Navas Ruiz, Madrid, Cátedra, 1982.
• Historia del movimiento romántico en España, E. Allison Peers, Gredos, Madrid, 1954, 2 vols.
• "The internalization o Quest-Romance", en Romanticism and Conciousness, H. Bloom, Nueva York, Norton, 1970.
• Panorama crítico del romanticismo español, Leonardo Romero Tobar, Madrid, Castalia, 1994.
• El Romanticismo: tradición y revolución, M. H. Abrams, Visor, Madrid, 1992.
• Los orígenes del romanticismo reaccionario español: el matrimonio Böhl de Faber, G. Carnero, Universidad de Valencia, 1978.
• Los orígenes del Romanticismo, F. Garrido Pallardó, Barcelona, Labor, 1968.
• Entre pueblo y corona. Larra, Espronceda y la novela histórica del Romanticismo, G. Güntert y J.L. Varela, Madrid, UCM, 1986.
• La época del Romanticismo (1808-1874), H. Juretschke, Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1989.
• Trayectoria del romanticismo español Madrid, P. Sebold, Madrid, Crítica, 1983.
• De ilustrados y románticos, P. Sebold, Madrid, El Museo Universal, 1952.
• Poesía española del siglo XIX, J. Urrutia, Madrid, Cátedra, 1985.
• José de Espronceda y su tiempo. Literatura, sociedad y política en tiempos del romanticismo, R. Marrast, Barcelona, Crítica, 1989 (1ª edición, 1974).
• El teatro romántico español (1830-1850). Autores, obras, bibliografía, P. Menarini, Bologna, Atesa, 1982.

See also

• Spanish Romantic writers: List of Romantic authors.
• Romanticism: General view of the movement.
• Literature of Spain: Evolution of Spanish literature.

External links

• Template:Es iconBiblioteca Literaria del Siglo XIX
• Template:Es iconEl Romanticismo en don Quijote.org
• Template:Es iconSociedad de Literatura Española del Siglo XIX
• Template:Es iconRomanticismo frente a Clasicismo en El Artista
• Template:Es iconLa pintura teatral española en el siglo XIX