Spanish Realism and Naturalism in Literature
Realism and Naturalism in 19th-Century Spain
Realism, a literary movement characterized by the search for exact reality through careful observation, grew throughout the second half of the nineteenth century. The cultivated genre was the novel. Naturalism, a literary movement created by Zola, takes Realism to its extreme consequences. It represents marginal characters and environments, defending human determinism and materialism. However, in Spain, it was not very successful because it limited the creativity of the individual and because it was incompatible with the prevailing Catholicism. Despite this, naturalistic traits are found in the works of Galdós (Fortunata and Jacinta) and Pardo Bazán (Mother Nature).
Main Features of Realism
- Reflection of accuracy and objectivity
- Authors’ own documentation
- Social intent of their works
- Elimination of Romantic bombast
Thus, we have the most developed genre of the moment, the novel, which arises, motivated by various foreign authors like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, and revolves around the picaresque. Its main characteristics are its credibility and descriptive nature, the presence of an omniscient narrator, the use of indirect style, and the great development of both landscapes and environments of people.
Main Topics in Realist Novels
- Love
- Religion (as opposed to clericalism)
- Politics
- City and country
- Regional reality
Although the characters are from all social classes, the middle class predominates.
The authors used a realistic style characterized by its lexical richness, which included various regional varieties of the Spanish language, jargon, and various expressions of spoken language, through a declarative tone and simple language.
In the development of the novel, we can distinguish two stages: Costumbrismo (Fernán Caballero and Alarcón) and Realism (Pereda, Palacio Valdés, Pardo Bazán, Valera, Galdós, and Clarín).
Valera
The main characteristics of his works are the aesthetic stance marked by the development of accurate and contemporary environments, but with a deletion of the raw and painful aspects. The most frequent subject is the conflict between human impulses and religious sentiments. In his ideology, the forces of life, love, and happiness trump pseudomysticisms, and he employs a very elegant and careful style. His most important works were Pepita Jiménez, Juanita, and Doña Luz.
Galdós
The main features of his novels were the recreation of environments and characters and the use of a spontaneous, expressive, agile, and suggestive style. He had a great literary work in which we can distinguish two lines: the National Episodes and novels, and a third line of theater.
Within his production of novels, three basic stages stand out: a first stage in which he produces thesis novels in which a modern character faces a traditionalist one (Doña Perfecta and Gloria); a second stage where he produces realistic novels in which he shows a critical and progressive Madrid of the time (The Disinherited, Torment, Fortunata and Jacinta); and a third stage in which Galdós favors spiritual problems (Nazarín and Mercy).
Finally, we highlight his National Episodes, a new type of historical novel that responds to previous documentation and a desire for objectivity. It offers a fictionalized vision from the Revolutionary War until the Restoration.
Leopoldo Alas, Clarín
He is notable for his critical work and for his extensive narrative, within which The Judge’s Wife stands out, one of the three or four best Spanish novels of all time. It contains both the most serious human problems and a vast panorama of the society of his time. Although it has been considered a naturalistic novel, it is only insofar as it exposes the influence of social pressure on the behavior of the characters. It unifies perfectly constructive, technical security, accuracy of language, and masterly descriptions with an impression of objectivity.