Spanish Literature: 18th and 19th Century Movements

Post-Baroque Poetry

Grown in the first half of the eighteenth century, the imitation of Góngora and Quevedo in the formal and the thematic.

Authors: Gabriel Álvarez de Toledo, Eugenio Gerardo Lobo, Antonio Porcel.

Neoclassical Poetry

Search for neoclassical clarity and usefulness; follows the approaches of the Poetics of Ignatius Luzán.

Major Trends

  • Rococo Poetry. Composition feature: Anacreon. Authors: J. Scaffold, T. Gonzalez, JP Oven and J. Meléndez Valdés.
  • Philosophical Poetry. Useful poetry, social issues (humanity and progress). Authors: Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos and salmantinos, Manuel J. Quintana.
  • Didactic Poetry. Fables (played, in general, by animals.) Authors: Félix M. Samaniego and Tomás de Iriarte.
  • Sentimental Poetry. Notes emotional and lurid, despair and pessimism. Author: Nicasio Álvarez Cienfuegos.

Theater

Baroque Theater

Cultured in the first half of the eighteenth century, prohibition of sacramental records (1765).

Authors: José de Cañizares and Antonio de Zamora.

Costumbrista Theater

Short blocks, called sainete on types and peasants eighteenth-century style.

Author Spotlight: Ramón de la Cruz (El dandies, El Manolo).

Neoclassical Theater

Cold reception in the eighteenth century, but success in the nineteenth century, its purpose is to combine delight and education.

Search clarity, sobriety and credibility: rule of three units and decorum; restrictions on the number of characters.

  • Neoclassical Tragedy. On the back, the Nobles personajes Reyes; historical events; objective Curriculum; sometimiento of passion to reason and duty. Work detached: Rachel by Vicente García de la Huerta.
  • Comedy Neoclassical. Personajes common; ridiculed social vices and errors, and reward truth and strength. Work outstanding: El sí de las niñas, by Leandro Fernandes Moratín.
  • Sentimental Comedy. Exaltation of new civic virtues (sensitivity, humanity, honesty). Work outstanding: The offender honor of Jovellanos.

Essay

Benito J. Feijoo

Writings designed to modernize the Spanish mentality: fighting and popular scientific errors. Addressed to a broad audience, addressing various topics with style and family around and include humor.

Works highlighted: Theater critic universal Letters scholarly and curious

José Cadalso

Letters Marruecas. Epistolary form and perspectivism, through three characters, Nuno, Gazel Well-Beley.

Vision of Spain: greatness with the Reyes Católicos, and in the sixteenth century and later decay.

Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos

Reports, memoirs and speeches to the authorities to achieve reforms.

Works noted: Informe sobre la Ley Agraria; Memory on public education …

Novel

In the first half of the eighteenth century: the influence of Quevedo (Visions … and Life of Diego de Torres Villarroel).

In the second half of the eighteenth-century novel teaching (satire of predication Baroque Fray Gerund of Campazas, Father José Francisco de Isla).

The late eighteenth-century sentimental novel (Eusebius; Endox, daughter of Belisarius, Pedro de Montengón

Romanticism

Cultural and artistic movement emerged in Germany and England, to the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, with the beginning of modernity and the constitution of the liberal bourgeoisie.

Literary Features

Themes. Freedom, power, justice, the meaning of life and the silence of God, the destination human being and its mysteries, love and expected inalcanzable.

Style. Rejection of poetic conventions del lenguaje; claim of integration about the various styles and records, use of colloquialisms and neologisms; exclamatory statements, and vocabulary and stylistic features that express the subjectivity and sensitivity.

Evolution

Step in Spain: German Romantic ideology, traditionalist view, polemics, reviews. Phase Two: triumph of the movement, the influence of French romanticism. Third step: posromanticismo; German influence (Heine) and folk poetry.

Romantic Drama

Structure and speech. Division in days, blending of prose and verse, and a tendency to polymeter; rejection of the rule of three units, mixed it so tragic and comic.

Themes. Apasionado love, fate, revenge, the critique of power and authority, also reasons for suicide and honor; supernatural elements.

Personajes. Protagonist victim of fate and society, women, love and sufrimiento.

Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, the Duke of Rivas, Don Juan Tenorio by José Zorrilla.

Romantic prose. Historical Romance: Lord of Bembibre, Enrique Gil y Carrasco. People or serials: Mary, the daughter a journeyman of Wenceslao Ayguals of Izco. costumbrista Realism: La gaviota, Fernão Caballero.

Costumbrismo

Newspaper articles descriptive of character (of scenes and types): Panorama matritense, Ramon Mesonero of Romans, and Andalusian scenes of Serafín Estébanez Calderon.

Mariano José de Larra

Creator of the literary article in Spain; firm with pseudonyms (Figaro, Andrés Niporesas …).

Articles peasants: a critical analysis of reality and reform proposals: El castellano viejo, Coffee makes you tomorrow. Artículos politicians. Liberal ideology, addresses the issue of freedom of expression and censorship. Articles of literary criticism: criticism of the play and the creation art.

Style. Incorporation of dialogue and letter; confessional character; exageración, irony.

Romantic Poetry

Narrative poetry. From a historical theme (medieval and epic) and poetry ‘philosophical’ or social. Poetry. First half of the century: rhetorical emphasis, second half: intimate poetry.

José de Espronceda

Music. About marginal human types, symbols of ideological values and moral defense of freedom, social criticism.

The student of Salamanca. Themes: love and death, the burlador their presence entierro; protagonist: rebel before God, space and time: Salamanca, night, information supernatural and terrifying.

El Diablo world. Meaning of life in a society ruled by evil.

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

Rimas: 79 poems about love, poetry and creative writing; la soledad, anguish and death, nature, sleep. Constant presence of I, dialogues; parallels, correlation and forms bimembres; rhyme asonant; polymetric.