Romanticism: Literature and Arts in 19th Century Europe
Characteristics of Romanticism
Historical Context
- Crisis of absolute monarchy, return to constitutional government and parliamentary democracy.
- Rise of nationalisms, emphasizing cultural and linguistic identities.
- Bourgeoisie as the ruling class through trade and industrial revolution.
- Liberalism advocating economic and political freedom and individual rights.
- Idealism as a philosophical current prioritizing spirit and ideas over material reality.
Lyric Poetry
Romantic lyric poetry is personal and intimate, reducing rhetoric and emphasizing lyricism. Love and passion for the world are major themes, with exploration of new metrics and sounds.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870)
Bécquer’s poetry, full of emotion and feeling, includes:
- Prose: Legends, twenty-eight stories dominated by mystery and the beyond.
- Poetry: Rimas, 79 brief poems, often with two, three, or four stanzas, generally assonant, and including free verse.
Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885)
Rosalía de Castro, who lived in Castile but preferred Galicia, faced an unhappy marriage and economic hardship. Her works include:
- Cantares gallegos: Written in Castile, expressing nostalgia for her homeland, Galicia.
- On the banks of Sar (En las orillas del Sar): Her Castilian masterpiece, exploring themes of privacy, love, pain, injustice, faith, death, and eternity.
José de Espronceda (1808-1842)
Espronceda cultivated major literary genres, but his most important works are poetic. His Poems (1840) include a mix of neo-classical and romantic styles. Key works:
- The Student of Salamanca (El estudiante de Salamanca): A 2,000-verse composition about the crimes of Don Felix de Montemar.
- The Devil World (El diablo mundo): An unfinished, polymetric work of 8,100 verses, intended as an epic of human life.
Prose
Driven by a desire for literary fiction, Spanish prose focused on novels, scientific/scholarly prose, journalism, and manners. Four novel types emerged: educational, emotional, terror, and anticlerical, with the anticlerical being the most purely romantic. Romantic influence is strongest in the historical novel.
Journalism: Mariano José de Larra (1809-1837)
Larra, known for his journalism, committed suicide at twenty-eight. He wrote over 200 articles under various pseudonyms (e.g., Figaro). His work can be categorized as:
- Folklore articles: Satirizing Spanish lifestyle and expressing sorrow for his country’s imperfections.
- Literary criticism: Critiques of the romanticism of his era.
- Political articles: Reflecting his liberal and progressive views, criticizing absolutism and Carlist traditionalism.
Theater
The most representative Romantic genre, characterized by:
- Rejection of neoclassical rules (unity of action, place, and time).
- Preference for verse over prose.
- Legendary, historical, and fictional themes.
- Romantic vision of life.
- Extraordinary environments.
- Mysterious and rebellious personalities.
Key works include Don Álvaro or the Force of Destiny (Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino) by the Duke of Rivas and Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla.