Spanish Literature: From Baroque to Realism and Naturalism

Posted on Sep 18, 2024 in Latin

BAROQUE

What they sought in the Baroque era and did the difficulty breaking the balance between form and content in the Renaissance has always been important.

Culteranismo: The head of culteranismo was Góngora. In culteranismo, the balance between form and content of further developing broke the way they always did everything much more complicated.

Concept: It’s the opposite of culteranismo, the concepts are much more important as content. They wanted to say much with few words and get by using words with multiple meanings. They made many puns, antitheses, and paradoxes.

Narrative (Cervantes): Cervantes wrote picaresque novels, Byzantine novels, Moorish novels, pastoral novels, sentimental and chivalric romances.

• Picaresque novels deal with a rogue who is looking for a job and has all the trouble that is the rogue with each of their masters.
• Byzantine novels are about two lovers who are separated and the beloved is to make a trip to fetch his beloved, but during the whole trip encounters many obstacles, which are always overcome without difficulty. Always ends well.
• In the novels, the characters are always Moorish Moors and Christians. Does not advertise the wars between the Moors and Christians but the rivals in courtesy, gallantry, etc..
• In the pastoral novels, the protagonists are shepherds who appear in an idealized world, a kind of paradise (Locus amoenus). There are also idealized shepherds who are dressed as Marquis, speak with a refined language and always speak of unrequited love.
• Sentimental novels have a theme of love but the characters are not pastors. The author makes a psychological analysis of characters in love.
• In the novel of chivalry, the protagonist is always a knight errant who must face battles, monsters, ogres, etc. Always victorious. Once won a battle and before starting it entrusts himself to God and his beloved.

Cervantes wrote between the Renaissance and Baroque. The novels he wrote touched all the subgenres. In Don Quixote, he managed to combine all sub-genres. Cervantes also wrote short stories to novels, he called them copies of these novels, the reader can take an example that teaches something useful.

Cervantes wrote his greatest work, Don Quixote, was published in two parts. In 1605 he published the first part and in 1915 the second, but during this period was published Quijote de Avellaneda false because the first part Cervantes anticipated what would happen in the second half and Avellaneda plagiarized, that Cervantes was hurt a lot.

His original intention was to make a parody of romances because of the time were very bad because people wanted a lot of people wrote and could not write well.

Theatre (Lope de Vega)

At first, the theater is represented in temples and attending all classes of the time.

In the seventeenth century, the theater begins to leave the temple and do the work in the village square, at that time also began to emerge the first theater companies stable. At that time women could not act and the female characters represented them were dressed men, while also arise theaters at that time were called pens and usually were in the backyard. The common people saw him standing and nobles from the balconies.

The theater in the seventeenth century, was an immediate success thanks to the new features introduced by Lope de Vega. Given its success, the authors were overwhelmed to write plays, but the theater was succeeded by Lope de Vega and many playwrights followed suit.

The fundamental basis for making comedies that tried Lope was watch and observe people and see what they liked, and gave it. Lope comedy mixed with tragedy. He claimed responsibility for that life is not all joy and all sorrow, everyone goes through ups and downs in life and the theater has to reflect reality, do not have to fake.

Lope broke with all three units, the unit of time before Lope’s work could not spend 24 hours but Lope made them last as long as desired. The unit of space, before Lope developed only in one place, with Lope could be developed in different places. And the unity of action, before Lope was only a solo theme in the works.

The fact of the variety made the play was much more fun, gives you much more dynamic.

It also changes the structure of the work: the work consisted of 5 acts and made only 3 of these 5, which are divided into several scenes. In the first act is the approach in the second action takes place and the third outcome occurs.

It also introduced a new character, the funny, it used to be the servant of the protagonist. Introduced songs and dances to the plot.

The topics discussed were not ropturistas, always wore conservative issues. The kings always appear as gods, very idealized.

Also comes much the theme of honor, the real drama is when honor is lost for other persons, not acts themselves.

ILLUSTRATION

The learned call into question the old values of traditional society, i.e., try to end with:

• Obscurantism, superstitions, and beliefs that have no rational basis.
• With certain privileges of the church and the nobility.

Observation, experience, and not the authoritarian principle become the basis of new thinking. Ie only accept ideas that can demonstrate through reason.

The picture suggested a series of reforms to achieve progress, i.e., greater social justice. These reforms were:

• Land reforms: In agriculture, they wanted to abolish laws that banned the selling of church property and the nobility. Also establish an irrigation system and enable farmers’ access to culture.
• Education reforms: education wanted not a privilege but a right.

They also tried to improve communications, industry, etc.

The enlightened supported the absolute power of kings to carry out his reforms. Therefore the reforms were carried out from above, without the people, (especially for the people but without the people). Therefore it is said that the government practiced enlightened despotism.

The illustrations were supporters of religious tolerance, also favored the intimate religious and ecclesiastical power separation of state power. They wanted complete independence of science and philosophy with regard to the church.

During the last decades of the century, the desire of the bourgeoisie to contain political representation, originated in France, resulted in a broad revolutionary movement that culminated in the Revolution in 1789.

The illustration in Spain.

Broadcast Spots:

• Throughout the trip they made to France.
• Gatherings (other intellectuals met to discuss reforms, etc.)
• Translation of books (mostly French).
• Appearance of the first newspapers.

While in Spain the figure was less echo in France, little by little all this comes to fruition and are born many institutions that want to raise the cultural level of the people

• Museo del Prado in Madrid.
• National Library, where a copy of every book published in Spain.
• Botanical Garden.
• First veterinary school in Madrid.
• First school of engineering of roads, canals, and ports.

All with a desire to raise the educational level of the Spanish population.

ROMANTICISM

Romanticism is a social and artistic movement that covers the first half of the nineteenth century and spread throughout Europe and America.

The main objective of this movement is to exercise the right to liberty, both in the realm of the individual and the collective as opposed to the rules, whether social or political.

Romantic artists dispense with the traditional rules. Passion replaces reason and the works become very subjective because I dominated the poetic. Romantic works are characterized by a mix of genres, the combination of verse and prose, and the use of different metric structures in the same poem.

The man is far from romantic. Not interested in money, since the vast majority were of a rather high social class. Had an aristocratic and refined spirit. This aristocratic spirit hits the materialist spirit. The Romantic critics that people no longer care about the value or honor, just care about money.

The romantic is a tormented soul, is unhappy. Aspires to much, so you will never get where you want, is always a sore vital. Some, disorder, commit suicide.

Some end up with that discomfort in several ways:

• Politics: political struggle. Political activism.
• Evaded in time: the further away you are, the more likely you get where you want. The romantic man idealizes the Middle Ages. We have the knights of the Middle Ages as heroes by the literature. Victory of the historical novel.
• Evaded in space: People are attracted to the exotic (the other one) and stayed with the picturesque, superficial.
• Suicide: Some ended up committing suicide because they thought that between what they thought and the Royal Society was an abyss.

MAIN ISSUES

In the romance, the expression of personal feelings and emotions is the theme and the genre that best expresses the lyrical. We often find in his works social condemnation and concern for others’ problems, often they do not only think but are set in characters who are marginalized in society, as the executioner and the beggar, because they also feel marginalized society in which they live. Other issues discussed were those associated with nature and the evocation of an idealized medieval past. Another issue was the exaltation of freedom for example in the pirate song or beggar, both characters were beings who did not meet the laws and that did not conform to society. On many occasions, the author imagines car because you do not like the society they live.

LANDSCAPES OF ROMANTICISM. NATURE

The night, dusk, cemeteries, ruins, storms, etc. like the Romantics because there is mystery, solitude, and sadness. These landscapes often reflect the author’s tormented soul and concerns.

Lyric

Stage 1 (1st half of XIX century)

LYRIC

– Becquer

Stage 2 (2nd half of XIX century) Romantic

– Rosalia de Castro behind

In Spain, the romantic lyric are two stages.

The first covers the first half of the nineteenth century and is closely linked to political activity, poets disagree with society, are combative and express exaltation and grandeur, although they tend to respect the metrical structures. His poetry is very passionate.

In the second phase, late romanticism, this increases the expression of personal themes, poetry becomes more intimate and the metric is used more freely. The romance of the second stage is called Romantic behind.

The romance behind

Written in the romantic style in the second half of the nineteenth century, where what prevails at the moment is naturalism. The Romantics are behind Becquer and Rosalia de Castro. Write poetry much more intimate, but with greater freedom.

AUTHORS

José de Espronceda

Of its predominantly lyric poetry. After meeting European romanticism, Espronceda style evolved from the neoclassical aesthetic appearance to a more spontaneous expression in that mix genres and metrical schemes. In lyric wrote:

• The Pirate Song
• The song of the beggar.

He wrote two narrative poems:

• The student of Salamanca, is a comprehensive narrative and lyrical poem of nearly 2000 verses that tells the legend of young libertine and infidel Don Félix de Montemar, clear precedent of another famous figure, the Don Juan Tenorio.
• The devil world is a very long poem of over 8000 lines and is mainly philosophical. It is the elegy’s Song Teresa.

UBI AFFAIRS: It’s a question that often appears in the elegies. The author wonders where a number of people.

Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

The rhymes are lyrical poems, legends, fantastic stories, mostly of medieval inspiration, written in prose.

The rhyming style mimics the compositions of popular poetry makes a simple in form, very short, is a poetry full of emotion and feelings. Imitating the typical resources of popular poetry, is frequent use of parallelism, correlation, simple vocabulary and rhyming assonance.

The poems that make up rhymes revolve around the following themes: the desire to express themselves through poetry, amorous affairs, desolation, pessimism about life (existential issues, bitter reflection on the meaning of life and fear to death. He sees life as something sterile) and loneliness.

The legends are 28 stories in prose poetry of that part of traditions and legends, recreating the romance themes: loneliness, mystery, etc.

Wrote the following legends:

• The Moonbeam
• Green eyes
• The mountain of souls
• Maese Perez, the organist.

Johan Wolfgang Goethe

Fausto wrote. Fausto was an old man of science, his thirst for knowledge has no bounds and discover that reason and the books have not satisfied. Decides to bargain with the devil in exchange for his soul, returned the youth, and promises to satisfy their desire for making all live life.

Rosalia de Castro

In his poetry reflected his feelings and experiences as well as love for their land and longing that gave him his memory. Wrote:

– On the banks of Sar

NARRATIVE

The foremost objective of the narratives of the Romantic period is to inform the public elements that are part of the country’s identity, to achieve this are usually followed two paths:

• From the evocation of the past, often idealized the Middle Ages or the sixteenth and seventeenth century. The result is a historical novel (Enrique Gil Carrasco, M. Bembridge) and legend. Labels can be in prose as Becquer or verse as those of Rivas and Zorrilla.
• The observation of this is the starting point for the novel of manners, stands Fernán Caballero (Cecilia Bohl de Faber) and customs article (Ramon de Mesonero Romans). Both tell stories where the most important is the description of environments and characters typical of Spain and are considered current record later literary Realism.

AUTHORS

Mariano José Larra

He is considered the heir of the Enlightenment, whose projects for improving the country defended and propagated through his newspaper articles. The combative personality and criticism of this author is a good example of liberal romantic spirit.

The style of journalistic prose is straightforward Larra. Frequently employed the use of irony to a humorous expose of social defects that seeks to prevent, as his vocabulary is very simple, your articles are accepted by a wide audience. The tone of his recent articles is becoming more bitter and pessimistic, disappointed observed possibly because of the impossibility of reforming the country.

Wrote:

• The old Castilian: Aims to combat rudeness and lack of education.
• Come back tomorrow, aims to combat laziness inficacia and administration.
• Day of the Dead, 1836: Disappointment of Larra realizing the impossibility of reforming the country.

THEATRE

The authors of the romantic drama inspired by the seventeenth-century Spanish drama, which took formal and thematic aspects.

Among the formal qualities of Baroque origin appear in the romantic works are:

• The use of verse
• The replacement of the acts by the day
• Rejection of the three units (space, time, and action).

Among the subjects which is a clear preference for medieval and honor-related. Repeat the characters who appeared in the works of Lope (the lover, the lady, the elderly, etc.). The hero and heroine of romantic drama become a symbol of freedom because they defy social norms and fight for the triumph of his feelings of love.

Romantic drama The name refers to the works of this period, whose most striking feature was the mixture between the tragic and the comic. The constant change of scenery provides the romantic drama of a great dynamism. The romantic drama was too much at all, was so exaggerated that it was fake, was too histrionic.

DON JUAN TENORIO

Part 1:

Don Juan returns to Seville to compare the result of a bet that crossed a year before Don Luis Mejía. The bet was who would know both do worse with more success. D. Juan wins the bet because he has deceived more women and more men killed than its rival. D. Juan to finish his exploits promises to seduce a novice Doña Inés (D. Luis Mejía promised) that is in a convent and left him alone to get married. Kidnaps her and takes her home. In the innocence of Doña Inés, D. John feels a longing for purity, but is forced to confront D. Luis and the commander to come home. D. John is willing to apologize and humble, but is mocked to a degree intolerable to him. Kill them both and fled. Loses the possibility of regeneration. The fate throws him back into depravity.

Part 2:

Five years later in a cemetery where victims lie D. John, there is deluded in the shadow of Doña Inés who announces his forthcoming death. D. John invited to dinner at the statue of the commander and forgotten. Later when you are about to dine with his friends heard a knocking of the commander, his friends to see the faint ghost and D. Juan is just off the appearance that becomes to predict his death and return the invitation. D. Juan comes to the banquet of the commander, the commander is still far away to spend a funeral, which is his own funeral, has died at the hands of his friends that he had challenged before, because I thought they were the ones who prepared all above. Reflects the last minute and ask forgiveness, repent and get the eternal salvation of his soul.

Realism and Naturalism

It is known as realism art movement that dominates the second half of the nineteenth century. The main feature is the opposition to the subjective and fantastic themes of Romanticism. Therefore, the arguments of his works deal with everyday life and the social, cultural, political, and economic produced by industrialization and scientific and technological advances.

The realist works are considered natural when the purpose of accuracy enhances and explains the human types and their actions as a result of genetic inheritance or environmental influence.

The writers of this period imitated the activity of scientists as observation, analysis, and thorough documentation are essential to realistic literature.

The genre that best fits the novel.

However, total objectivity is achieved and not remain oblivious to the problems and each has their ideology. Distinguishes between two positions, a conservative, intended to restore religion, family, and honor, and other progressive, which exposes the flaws of society.

NARRATIVE

The realistic novel and the story reached a high standard and were outstanding representatives. Most of them were regional:

• Valera: Andalucía
• Pereda: Mountain Santander
• Galdós: Madrid
• Clarín: Asturias (Oviedo, in his novels he calls Vetusta.
• Emilia Pardo Bazán: Galicia
• Blasco Ibáñez: the garden of Valencia.

The most characteristic features of the realist novel are:

• Detailed description, objective and detailed environments and characters, although they use resources such as irony, personification, own subjective language.
• Using the omniscient point of view, the narrator can make comments to influence readers and have knowledge of even the feelings of the characters.
• Prevalence of the thematic conflict between progress and tradition, on the institutions or social classes and their customs, especially very well portrayed the bourgeoisie, who wants to pretend it is not.
• Using a sober and simple result of a very technical. Sometimes incorporates slang in the dialogue.

Naturalism is the culmination of realism. In Spain, limited and weakly influenced by writers like Galdós, Emilia Pardo Bazán, Clarín, and Blasco Ibáñez. The father of French naturalism was Émile Zola.

Its most outstanding features are:

• Reproduction of sordid or unpleasant environments of society, characters abound alcoholic morons, psychopaths whose behavior is marked by biological inheritance and social conditions.
• Scrutiny and faithful reproduction of the society, leading to extreme realism.

AUTHORS

Benito Perez Galdos

He is considered one of the best storytellers in Spanish and the author most representative of the realistic novel. In his novel output are distinguished National Episodes inspired by nineteenth-century Spanish history, and those novels that came from the observation of his time. These are divided into three groups that meet three times in reforming the novelist will:

• Thesis novels: Displays in his first narratives the negative consequences of intolerance. The reader can see the clash between liberal and conservative ideology. These novels were not fully realistic because it felt too liberal ideology. In his novels had a Manichean view of the world, separates the good and bad. In his novels were good liberals and conservatives were bad and it was distort reality. The characters are flat, no twists. The novel Doña Perfecta is included in this group.
• Contemporary novels, Galdós wrote them in the fullness of his narrative technique and in them the critical intention is clear. Provides extensive information about the problems the company had not yet resolved entoces. Some of them are:Fortunata and Jacinta, Miau, La de Bringas, the disinherited, and Torment.
• Spiritual Novels: The characters are kind and practice the works of mercy. Examples of these include: Mercy and Nazario.

Leopoldo Alas, Clarín

It is another of the great representatives of realism in Spain. Ironically portrayed the society of his time and was sympathetic to the disadvantaged and ruthless with those who abused their privileges. Was highly critical of traditional Catholicism.

His most important works are:

• Adiós, Cordera
• The Regent
• His only son.

In the judge’s wife, inserted passages of naturalistic, especially when it tells of the crisis facing the protagonist.

THE REGENT

The theme of the novel is the moral and social portrait of a dull provincial city, Oviedo-Vetusta-and by extension of the Spain of that time: the hypocrisy, false piety, social conventions, the power of the church, corruption of the clergy, and the aristocracy are some of the issues reported by Clarín.

Argument

Tells the story of Ana Ozores (orphan as a child and raised by a devout and uncompromising aunts) that too young to marry a man much older than her (Don Victor Quintanar) who is the ruler of the hearing. Hence it being called the judge’s wife. The husband almost ignored him, busy in their work and their hobbies (hunting and birds). The increasing dissatisfaction emotional (emotional deprivation) and physical (sexual shortcomings) of Anne oscillates between his confessor (Fermín de Pas) who falls for her and Alvaro Mesia (an experienced seducer who wants to add to his long list of conquests). At the end all drop out.

Points to note

• The psychology of the characters, especially the portraits of Ana and Fermín. Ana is a sensitive, dreamy young man, frustrated in her marriage and drowned by the surrounding environment. Don Fermín is the spiritual master of the city and embodies the ambition for power.
• The exhaustive description (detailed) Vetusta City, representing the company in Spain at the time. Provincial city, corrupt it affects the behavior of the characters and under whose influence the protagonist succumbs. The pressure of the city of Anna and other characters on the novel of naturalism.
• The perfect structure of the novel, which is divided and both parties:

Part 1 (chapter 1-15) in three days, the environment and the psychology of the characters to a very slow pace.

Part 2: (Chapter 16-30) in three years the conflicts in the first part, at a rapid pace.

• The narrative technique used on this novel because it combines the modern aesthetic points of view: omniscient, objective narrator, interior monologue, etc..

Emilia Pardo Bazán

He was a writer of wide culture, he lectured and conducted critical studies of various authors. It was the best connoisseur of Emile Zola, the father of French naturalism. Naturalism introduced in Spain, the principles applied only in part because his religious beliefs prevented him from admitting that human activities were the result of environmental or genetic conditions.

The best of his literary production are her stories and novels, most notably, Los Pazos de Ulloa. Write on the Galician rural environment.