Romanticism in Spanish literature

Artistic movement

Romanticism arrived late and lasted only for a short but intense period, since in the second half of the 19th century it was supplanted by Realism, whose nature was antithetical to that of Romantic literature.

Costumbrism focused on contemporary life, largely from the point of view of the "common" people, and expressed itself in pure, correct language. The principal author in the Costumbrist style was Ramón de Mesonero Romanos, situated on the margins of Romanticism, and in an ironic position in relation to it. Costumbrism, born out of Romanticism, but as a manifestation of nostalgia for the values and customs of the past, contributed to the decadence of the Romantic movement and the rise of Realism, as it became bourgeois and turned into a style of description.

Rejection of Neoclassicism. Faced with the scrupulous rigor and order with which rules were observed in the 18th century, the romantic writers combined the genres and verses of distinct media, at times mixing verse and prose; in the theater the rule of three unities (action, place, and time) was despised, and they alternated the comic with the dramatic. Subjectivism. Whatever the type of work, the passionate soul of the author poured into it all of its feelings of dissatisfaction with a world that limited and frustrated the expression of its longings and worries, in relation to love, society, and country alike. They identified nature with spirit, and expressed it as melancholy, gloom, mystery, and darkness, in contrast with the neo Classicists, who barely showed interest in the natural world. Insatiable cravings for passionate love, happiness, and the possession of the infinite caused in the Romantics a disheartenment, an immense disappointment that sometimes brought them to suicide, as in the case of Mariano José de Larra. Attraction of the nocturnal and mysterious. The Romantics situated their sorrowful and disappointed feelings in mysterious or melancholic places, such as ruins, forests, and cemeteries. In the same manner, they felt attracted to the supernatural, that which escapes logic, such as miracles, apparitions, visions from beyond the grave, the diabolical, and witchcraft. Flight from the world. Their disgust toward the bourgeois society that they were forced to live in caused the Romantics to try to turn their back on their circumstances, imagining past eras in which their ideals prevailed, or taking inspiration from the exotic. In contrast with the neo Classicists, who admired Greco Roman antiquity, the Romantics preferred the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Their favorite modes of expression were the novel, legends, and historical drama.

Romanticism came to Spain through Andalusia and Catalonia. In Andalucía, the Prussian consul in Cádiz, Juan Nicolás Böhl de Faber, father of novelist Fernán Caballero, published a series of articles between 1818 and 1819 in the Diario Mercantil (Mercantile Daily) of Cádiz, in which he defended Spanish theatre of the Siglo de Oro, and was widely attacked by the neo Classicists. Against him were José Joaquín de Mora and Antonio Alcalá Galiano, who argued from a traditionalist, antiliberal, and absolutist point of view. Böhl de Faber's ideas were incompatible with theirs (since they were still tied to the Age of Enlightenment), despite the fact that they represented European Literary Modernism. In Catalonia, El Europeo was a journal published in Barcelona from 1823 to 1824 by two Italian editors, one Englishman, and the young Catalans Bonaventura Carles Aribau and Ramón López Soler. This publication defended moderate traditionalist Romanticism following Böhl's example, totally rejecting the virtues of Neo Classicism. An exposition of the Romantic ideology appeared for the first time in its pages, in an article by Luigi Monteggia, titled Romanticismo.

In spite of the brief period during which romantic lyric poetry thrived in Spain, there arose other notable poets who deserve mention, such as the Barcelonan Juan Arolas (1805–1873), the Galician Nicomedes Pastor Díaz (1811–1863), Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda (1814–1873) and Pablo Piferrer (1818–1848). Piferrer, in spite of writing only in Spanish, was one of the precursors of the romantic movement in Catalonia.

Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda y Arteaga (March 23, 1814 – Madrid February 1, 1873) was a Cuban writer and poet of the 19th century. Although Cuban, she lived most of her life in Spain. She wrote various poems, plays, and novels. Her most famous work is an antislavery novel called Sab (novel).

Carolina Coronado (Almendralejo, 1823–Lisbon, 1911) merits special mention. She spent a great part of her childhood in the Extremaduran countryside, and from a very young age showed a talent for poetry. She married an American diplomat and lived in various foreign countries. Family misfortune prompted her to seek solitude and retreat in Lisbon, where she died in 1911. Her most important work is Poesías (1852).

During the Romantic period, there was a great interest in literary fiction, in particular, adventure and mystery novels; however, Spanish output of this type was scanty, limited to translations of foreign novels. More than a thousand translations circulated in Spain before 1850, in the historic, romantic, chivalrous, and melodramatic genres, representing writers such as Alexandre Dumas, père, Chateaubriand, Walter Scott, and Victor Hugo. Spanish prose essentially consisted of the novel, scientific or scholarly prose, journalism, and the intense development of costumbrismo. During the first quarter of the century, four distinct types of novels developed: moral and educative novels, romances, horror stories, and anticlerical novels. The most purely Romantic of these is the anticlerical novel. However, the Romantic influence would shape, principally, the historical novel.

The historical novel developed in imitation of Walter Scott (80 of his works had been translated), author of Waverley, Ivanhoe, and other novels of adventure set in the Scottish and English past. Spanish historical novels fall into two categories: liberal and moderate. Within the liberal school existed both anti clerical and populist currents. On the other hand, the moderate school produced, on occasion, novels exalting traditional and Catholic values. The most notable Spanish authors are:
Enrique Gil y Carrasco (Villafranca del Bierzo), 1815–Berlín 1846. A lawyer and diplomat, he was the author of El señor de Bembibre, the best Spanish historical novel, written in imitation of Walter Scott. Francisco Navarro Villoslada (1818–1895), who wrote a series of historical novels when the romantic genre was in decline and Realism was coming to be at its height. His novels were inspired by Basque traditions, and were set in the medieval era. His most famous work is Amaya, o los vascos en el siglo VIII (Amaya, or the Basques of the 8th century), in which the Basques and the Visigoths ally themselves against the Muslim invasion. It is also worth mentioning the contributions to the historical genre made by Mariano José de Larra, Serafín Estébanez Calderón and Francisco Martínez de la Rosa.

The majority of these works originated from the discussions in the assembly that adopted the Constitution of Cádiz. The most representative authors were Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) and Jaime Balmes Urpía (1810–1848):

Juan Donoso Cortés came from the liberal school, though later he defended Catholic and authoritarian ideas. His most important work is the Ensayo sobre el catolicismo, el liberalismo y el socialismo (Treatise about Catholicism, Liberalism, and Socialism), published in 1851. His style has a solemn yet compelling tone, and provoked lively debates. Jaime Balmes, however, belongs in the conservative, Catholic camp. Of his prolific output, El protestantismo comparado con el catolicismo en sus relaciones con la civilización europea (Protestantism compared with Catholicism in their relations with European civilization) (1842) and El criterio (1845) stand out.

Between 1820 and 1870, Spain developed the literatura costumbrista (literature of manners), which manifested itself in the cuadro de costumbres, or vignette of everyday life, a short prose article. These works were normally restricted to descriptive text, keeping argument to a minimum. They described the lifestyle of the era, a popular custom, or a personal stereotype. In many cases (as in the articles of Larra), the articles contain considerable satire. Costumbrismo (or costumbrism) arose out of the Romantic desire to emphasize the different and the peculiar, inspired by the French affinity for the same genre. Thousands of articles of this type were published, thus limiting the development of the novel in Spain, since narration and individual characters predominated in that genre, while costumbrist vignettes were limited to generic descriptions of personality types (bullfighter, chestnut seller, water carrier, etc.). Large anthologies of such vignettes were compiled, such as Los españoles pintados por sí mismos (Spaniards painted by themselves), (published in two volumes in 1843–1844, reprinted in one volume in 1851). Notable authors represented in this work are the madrileño Ramón de Mesonero Romanos and the Andalusian Serafín Estébanez Calderón.

Ramón Mesonero Romanos (1803–1882) was born and died in Madrid. He belonged to the Spanish Academy and was a gentle bourgeois. His ideas were anti Romantic and he was a great observer of the life around him. He was famous under the pseudonym El curioso parlante (The talking bystander). His principal literary production was in the costombrist tradition; however, he wrote Memorias de un setentón (Memories of a 70 year old), an allusion to the people and events he knew between 1808 and 1850. His costumbrist works were collected in the volumes Panorama matritense and Escenas matritenses.

Calderón (1799–1867) was born in Málaga and died in Madrid. He was known as El solitario (The solitary one), and held high political office. Though known for his conservatism, in his youth he was a liberal. He published various poems and a historical novel, Cristianos y moriscos (Christians and Moors), though his most famous work is a collection of costumbrist vignettes Escenas analuzas (Andalucían scenes) (1848), containing descriptions such as El bolero, La feria de Mairena, Un baile en Triana, and Los Filósofos del figón.