Spanish Romantic Literature: History, Authors, and Themes
The Spanish Romantic Literature: Historical Context
It opens with the French invasion in 1808, which provoked the uprising of May 2nd, 1808, and the War of Independence. During this period, a group of progressive bourgeois staged the first bourgeois revolution in Spain and drafted the Constitution of 1812 in an attempt to dismantle the structures of the Old Regime. The return of Ferdinand VII to Spain meant the cancellation of freedoms, a return to absolutist formulas, and estates in the social order. With the regency of Maria Cristina and Isabel II’s reign, a moderate liberalism began, but the continuing strife caused political instability, to which were added the Carlist wars. The 1868 revolution ended the reign of Isabel II.
Romanticism: Origin
Romanticism had its origin in the pre-Romantic movement Sturm und Drang (Tempest and Passion) in Germany, with Goethe and Schiller, who initiated the overcoming of the neoclassical aesthetic movement. In Spain, it arrived later. After the death of Fernando VII and the return of exiled liberals, Romanticism became the dominant aesthetic trend.
Features of Spanish Romanticism
- Individualism: Art and literature became the expression of self and feelings.
- Irrationalism: Romantics appreciated everything non-rational: emotions, dreams, fantasy, etc.
- Defense of freedom: In politics, art, and morality.
- Idealism: The search for an unattainable ideal in every respect; love inevitably leads to reality shock and disappointment.
- Nationalism: Romantic traits valued the differential of one’s country, regaining its history, traditions, and culture.
- Exoticism: Rejecting modern society leads to romantic works themed to escape in distant times or exotic places.
- Rebellious spirit and Juvenile rebellion: Against fate and against social norms. Marginal characters abound: the criminal, pirate, etc.
- Exalted and emphatic language: Use of questions, exclamations, plenty of images, sound words, and intense adjectives.
- Metrical renewal: Stanzas are innovative and far from the lines, predominantly polymetry.
Romantic Poetry
- First Romanticism: Bombastic rhetorical style.
- Lyric poetry abounds with themes of love, religious prejudice, death, etc.
- Narrative poetry: Narrative legends and historical events. Mystery, the miraculous, and the supernatural are common in this genre.
Authors of the First Romanticism
- José de Espronceda (1808-1842): Wrote several lyrical poems featuring rebel and marginalized characters (Pirate Song, The Executioner, He Deserves Death) and narrative poems such as The Student of Salamanca, the legend of Félix de Montemar, a libertine and tough womanizer.
- José Zorrilla and the Duke of Rivas.
- Post-Romanticism (2nd half of the nineteenth century): Poetry more intimate and sensitive with an easier vocabulary.
Authors of the Post-Romanticism
- Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870): The themes are love, death, pain, inspiration, etc. Rhymes highlights.
- Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885): Stresses the perfect fusion of personal feelings with the description of the landscape of their land. Follas Novas in Galician and Songs Along the Shores of Sar in Castilian.
The Romantic Drama
The basic theme is passionate love that hits the social norm and almost always ends in tragedy. The frame usually works in a medieval atmosphere. The scenery becomes very important. It mixes verse and prose, and the purpose is to move. The most cultivated drama is the historical drama, which was imposed after the premiere in 1835 of Don Álvaro or the Force of Fate by the Duke of Rivas, whose theme is the goal that chases the protagonist. In this drama are: Larra’s Macías, The Troubadour of Antonio García Gutiérrez, Lovers of Teruel by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch. The last great Romantic playwright, José Zorrilla, is the creator of Don Juan Tenorio, a version of The Trickster of Seville by Tirso de Molina. Don Juan is a character irreverent and disrespectful of human and divine laws; at the end of the drama, he saves his soul by the love for Doña Inés, the lady he falls for.
The Romantic Prose
- The table manners, journalistic genre: Descriptions of daily life, satirically. Mariano José de Larra and Mesonero Romanos stand out.
- The historical novel: It develops in the Middle Ages. The Lord of Bembibre by Enrique Gil y Carrasco highlights.