Expository Structures, Literary Realism, and Notable Spanish Authors
The Exhibition
It is a mode of discourse that explains and develops an idea or set of ideas. Its purpose is informative, and its dominant function is representative, derived from the aim of expanding the receiver’s knowledge.
Expository Structures
- Introduction: Establishes the issue and makes considerations about the method.
- Development: Reproduces the ideas.
- Conclusion: Formulates the final thesis in summary form, as a result of the development.
Inductive Method
From experience and observation of different data, general conclusions are drawn. It goes from the particular to the general.
Deductive Method
Starts from an initial position and tries to deduce other ideas or phenomena that confirm, complement, or are a consequence. It goes from the general to the particular.
The Instance
It is a formalized written document. This is a request that citizens tend to direct to administrative bodies when they try to get some service.
- Heading: Contains personal data.
- States: A lexicalized verb opens the exposition of the foundations.
- Requests: Gives way to the request for the foundations.
- A last paragraph includes the place and date of the application, the signature of the petitioner, and the administrative body that is targeted at the foot of the letter.
The Letter
This is a different text on each occasion because the message is always different. It must be tailored to the recipient: formal, if it is official public or business; colloquial, if it is for friends or family.
Letters have these sections:
- Heading: Name and address of the person or company to whom it is addressed.
- Greeting: Custom or bound to established formulas.
- Exposition.
- Farewell.
- Signature and date.
- P.S.
Curriculum Vitae
A written document whose purpose is to briefly report our capabilities.
Realism
With the consolidation of the bourgeoisie as the ruling class, literary and artistic tastes gradually moved away from Romanticism. Passion, the fantastic, and subjectivity were abandoned in favor of external reality and everyday life. Works were now based on direct observation of life. Verisimilitude and objectivity were sought.
Naturalism
Realism evolved into Naturalism, which tried to apply the experimental sciences to the novel and demonstrate that natural and social laws justify the lowest and most sordid human behavior.
Galdós’s Work
The work of Benito Pérez Galdós is immense. He wrote theater, articles, and essays in newspapers and magazines, but it is the narrative (his novels) that has given him the reputation he has today. It is, along with that of Cervantes, the most important of Spanish literature, both for its quality and the breadth of topics, settings, and characters described.
The National Episodes
He dedicated almost forty years to writing the National Episodes, a work that pretended to cover the recent history of Spain.
Leopoldo Alas, “Clarín”
Born in Zamora in 1852. Professor at the University of Zaragoza. Republican Councilor.
Clarín’s Work
He wrote numerous articles of literary criticism in which he described his ideas about the novel and narrative. His literary works are often divided, by their extension, into stories, short stories, and two novels (His Only Son and The Judge’s Wife).