SPANISH REALIST LITERATURE

'Spanish Realist literature' is the literature written in Spain during the second half of the 19th century, following the Realist movement which prevailed in Europe.
When the tendencies of the Romantic movement decreased, a new literary tendency overcomed in Europe in the middle of the 19th century: the Realism. It is a current coming from France towards 1850 which developed already existing germs in the Romanticism, mainly the costumbrism. The romantic ideas would dissolve little by little and it was began to react against ''the art by the art''; the fantasy was tired of the imaginative and colorful depictions, and now it contemplated objectively the people, society, and actions. The main precursor was Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) who, with works like The Human Comedy, imposed a moral and social aim in the novel. This purpose, becoming almost exclusive, quickly led to the Naturalism.
The term ''realist'' was used for the first time in 1850, referred to the painting, but it was exported after to the rest of the arts. In literature it was applied mainly to the novel. Perhaps one of the reasons for the popular success of novels is their publication in newspapers of the time. The publishers issued the novel by deliveries to make the public buy the newspaper daily. The attitude of the realistic writer is analytical and critical, and usually it stays appart from what it relates. The main novels of the 19th century were of social character, and the writers were considered themselves to be "historians of the present time".

Contents

Historical context

The Naturalism

Characteristics of the Realism

Realism and Naturalism in Spain

Generation of the '68

The novel: main authors

Juan Valera

José María de Pereda

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

Benito Perez Galdós

The ''National Episodes''

Novels

Plays

Importance of Galdós

Emilia Pardo Bazán

Work

Luis Coloma

Leopoldo Alas (Clarín)

Work

Armando Palacio Valdés

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

The poetry

Ramón de Campoamor

Gaspar Núñez de Arce

Other poets

The theater

José Echegaray

Manuel Tamayo y Baus

Other dramatists

The critic: Menéndez Pelayo

References

See also

Historical context

During the 19th century, Spain lived one of the most convulse periods of its history. The century was opened with the War of Independence against France and was closed with the Spanish-American War and the Disaster of the 98, which meant the loss of Cuba in America and the Philippines in Asia. The Borbón dynasty, after the reigns of Fernando VII (1814-1833) and Isabel II (1833-1868), was overthrown by the revolution of 1868, the Glorious Revolution. The regency of Serrano (1869-1870) and the brief reign of Amadeo de Saboya took place (1871-1873). Later, the short stage of the First Republic was begun (1873-1874), which was followed by the leadership of State of Serrano (1874) and the Restoration of the Borbón dynasty by means of Alfonso XII (1875-1885), son of Isabel II, after the uprising of Martínez Campos. Died the king, his second wife, María Cristina assumed the regency until 1902, year in which its son Alfonso XIII began to reign.

The Naturalism

Main articles: Naturalism (literature)


This literary tendency was born in France and its maximum representative was Émile Zola (1840-1902). This tendency originates from the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte (1798-1857), the methods of the physiologist Claude Bernard (1813-1878), and many distinctive achievements of the modern spirit: the democracy, the experimental methods (Claude Bernard) and the theories on the inheritance (Charles Darwin). This way, Zola looks for the reason of the social problems in the environment, and of the individuals problems in the biological inheritance. Thus, the Naturalism adopts a materialist and determinist conception of the people, who are not morally responsible, because they are the result of the environment that surrounds them and the inheritance. If the realist writer is conscious of what happens, the naturalist acts as an instruction judge that investigates the antecedents and the causes. Zola had a socialist ideology, and in his works alcoholic, crazy and psychopath personages abound.
The text where the naturalistic theory devised by Zola is found is ''La novela experimental'' (The experimental novel) (1880). In this text of literary critic, he maintains that the novelist is an observer and an experimenter. From the point of view of the observer, the writer offers the facts as he has observed them, and establishes the ambience in which the personages will move and where the facts will be developed. From the point of view of the experimenter, the novelist "institutes the experience", that is to say, he moves the personages through a particular history to show that the succession of facts will be the one that is demanded by the determinism of the studied phenomena.
In Spain, due to the contradictions between the naturalistic theories and the religious beliefs, the Naturalism had little echo, the critic asking itself if indeed that movement in strict sense occurred. Emilia Pardo Bazán deals about this in her article ''La cuestión palpitante'' (The trembling question) (1883), who was considered inside the school. Also passages of authors like Benito Pérez Galdós have been considered naturalistic, but that has been explicitly rejected by the majority. When speaking of Spanish Naturalism, the border with the Realism is not clear and, because of not having been the French theories adopted, it is not easy to differentiate well both movements.

Characteristics of the Realism

In Spain, the best literary fruit of the second half of the 19th century was the novel, consequence of the international blossoming of the genre at this time, as expression of the uprising of the middle-class, that throughout successive revolutions (1789, 1820, 1830, 1848) was conquering the political power. The values and inquietudes of the middle-class appear reflected in the literature of the Realism like in a mirror: individualism, materialism, desire of social ascent, and esteem of daily and immutable things.
The themes of the literary Realism are fundamentally the contrast between the traditional and farming values and the modern and urban values, the exodus from the field to the city and the social and moral contrasts that it causes, the fight for the social ascent and the moral and economic success, the insatisfied condition of the woman who already has right to the basic education but cannot access the world of job, and the middle-class independence and individualism; with all which the theme of adultery and the folletinesque and sentimental fantasy appears, as a way to escape. There are two tendencies in the Realism: the progressist and the conservative.
The realistic novel of this period is characterized by:

★ 'Objective vision of the reality' through direct observation of customs or psychological characters. Any subjective aspect, fantastic events and every feeling that moves away from the reality, is eliminated: "The novel is the image of the life" (Galdós), "an artistic copy of the reality" (Clarín).

★ 'Defense of a thesis:' the narrators write their works focusing the reality from their moral conception. That is called the omniscient narrator. The defense of a thesis usually compromises the objectivity of the novel.

★ 'Themes near the reader:' marital conflicts, infidelity, defense of the ideals, etc.

★ The 'colloquial and popular language' acquires great importance since it locates the personages in their real environment.

Realism and Naturalism in Spain

In Spain, Realism installed itself with extreme facility, since a precedent in picaresque novels and Don Quixote existed. It reached its maximum splendor in the second half of the 19th century (Juan Valera, Pereda and Galdós), although not reaching the rigor of the canons established by the school of Balzac.

★ In Galdós, and later in ''Clarín'', Pardo Bazán and Blasco Ibáñez, clear naturalistic influences exist, but without the scientific and experimental foundations that Émile Zola wanted to imprint in its works. They solely share the spirit of fight against the conservative ideology and, in many occasions, its subversive behavior.

★ The realistic novel generally reflects regional ambients, like that of Pereda in Cantabria, Juan Valera in Andalusia, ''Clarín'' in Asturias, etc. Benito Perez Galdós is an exception, because he prefers to acclimate himself in the Madrilenian urban space.
The Naturalism in Spain, like in France, had also its detractors and great controversies were created. Between the opponents, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón and José María de Pereda are found, who got to describe it as ''immoral''. Its most exalted defenders were Benito Perez Galdós and Emilia Pardo Bazán. The hardest controversy took place as of 1883, as a result of the publication of ''La cuestión palpitante'' (the trembling question) of Pardo Bazán.

Generation of the '68

This generation is formed by a series of writers considered to be the new national generation. The period of maximum coincidence as a generation took place in the 1880s. This generation is integrated by: Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, Jose María de Pereda, Benito Pérez Galdós, Juan Valera, Leopoldo Alas (''Clarín''), Emilia Pardo Bazán and Armando Palacio Valdés.
The characteristics that define this group are class conscience and optimism (that later will turn into pesimism because of the 1868 revolution). At an individual level, each one displays an own style. Out of all the authors of this group, Alarcón is the only who displays some characteristics inherited from the Romanticism, mainly the romantic costumbrism. This influence is appreciated clearly in ''Cuentos amatorios'' (1881), ''Historias nacionales'' (1881) y ''Narraciones inverosímiles'' (1881).

The novel: main authors

Juan Valera

Main articles: Juan Valera

Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano (Cabra, Córdoba, October 1824 - Madrid, April 1905) belonged to an aristocratic family. He carried out diplomatic missions in several countries and held important political positions. His career as a novelist began when he was around fifty years old. In his last years he was victim of a progressive blindness.

From his beginnings, Valera was opposed to the Romanticism, because of its extremisms, as much as to the Realism, because it prevented him to totally develop his fantasy. He only adopted a realist position when he chose real atmospheres (like his native Andalusia) and lifelike personages, although he rejected the less attractive aspects of the reality, not to the taste of the naturalists and some realists.
His importance is due to his novels; the first of them is ''Pepita Jiménez'' (1874), mostly written in epistolar form. In this work, the history of a widow is narrated, who puts herself in agreement with the father of a seminarist to move him away of his false vocation. Other important works are ''Doña Luz'' (approaching questions of religious vocation) and ''Juanita la Larga''. This third novel counts the idyll of Don Paco, a fiftyish man, with the protagonist, who wishes to redeem herself of it by a honest marriage.
Juan Valera was a liberal politician and skeptical in religion. He used a simple, although nonvulgar, literary language. When he died, the writers of the Generation of the 98 kept a deep respect to him. Today he is considered by great part of the critic as the best prosist of the 19th century, in spite of recognizing the creative superiority of Galdós.

José María de Pereda

Main articles: José María de Pereda


José María de Pereda was born in Polanco (province of Santander, present Cantabria) in 1833. He pertained to a Hidalgo family, he traveled much abroad, and he was a carlist deputy, although later he dedicated himself to the cultivation of his lands and to the literature. He counted on the friendship of Galdós, despite their opposite political ideology. He died in 1906 in his native town.
He began his literary production as a Costumbrist: inclined to the realism with observation capacities, he published ''Mountainous scenes''. Later, he would find his ideal formula for the novel, inserting that Costumbrism in a vision in love with the landscape and the people of the mountain, with their passions and their characteristic language. In his first novels of this type (''idyllic novel''), he used to face the peace and the ignorance of those rustic people with the political ambushes of the modern life (''Don Gonzalo de la Gonzalera'' and ''De tal palo tal astilla''). He defended a thesis that nowadays few would accept (like father, like son). The idyllic novel finishes when Pereda decided to resign to the explicit defense of any thesis. Stories like ''Sotileza'' (epic of Cantabrian fishermen) and ''La puchera'' belong to this second period. The one that is considered his masterpiece is ''Peñas arriba'' (1895), whose descriptive bucolism and the Casticism of its style can seem antiquated nowadays. In spite of that, José María de Pereda is considered a great narrator, equipped with great descriptive and epic capacity.

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

Main articles: Pedro Antonio de Alarcón


Pedro Antonio de Alarcón was born in Guadix (Granada) in 1833. He was one of the principal responsibles for the domination of the realism over the romantic prosa in rows at those moments. He was a politician in addition to a writer and his ideology evolved from liberal positions to more traditionalistic ones.
He participated in the war of Morocco as a voluntary and he left written testimony of his experience on ''Diary of a witness of the African war'' (1859). During a time he was a writer of trips, relating several of his trips in his articles. In a time his religious novels stood out, being the most popular of all ''The scandal'' (1875); in this novel he defended the Jesuits, which was very controversial. His most popular work, nevertheless, and by which he is remembered, is ''The hat of three tips'', published in 1874, that would inspire Falla his famous ballet.

Benito Perez Galdós

Main articles: Benito Pérez Galdós


Galdós is considered to be the most representative writer of the movement. He was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1843. He studied law in Madrid, where he knew the life of the Court. In Paris, he was perplex at the novels of Balzac, who would remarkably influence his work. He declared to be progressist and anticlerical, which did not suppose an obstacle to establish great friendships with Menéndez Pelayo and José María de Pereda, of opposite ideologies. Although he defined himself as a republican, little by little his radicalism tempered. Even Alfonso XIII and him kept a mutual personal affection. As of 1910 he began to lose the sight and he become ruined by the high expenses of his disordered intimate life. The Nobel Prize was asked for him, but lamentably half Spain, besides the Real Academia, were against the award for him; In vain was the support by the high ecclesiastical dignitaries. He died, blind, in 1920.

The ''National Episodes''

Given the prolific work of Galdós, we will begin mentioning the ''National Episodes'', distributed in five series, with a total of 46 volumes. They represent the amplest frame of contemporary Spanish history, between the War of Independence and the Restoration, with certain imaginative plot.
In the first series (1873-1875), the episodes of ''Trafalgar'', ''Bailén'', ''Zaragoza'' and ''Gerona'' appear. In almost all of them, the protagonist is Gabriel Araceli, a young man who lives the culminating moments of the War of Independence. In later series, ''The luggage of king José'', ''The one hundred thousand children of San Luis'', ''Zumalacárregui'' (about the First Carlist War), ''Prim'' or ''The one of the sad destinies'' (on Isabel II) appear. The last series dealed with facts lived by the own Galdós, but it was unfinished and it is more neglected.

Novels

In his first time (1867-1878), Galdós vigorously wrote against the intolerance and hypocrisy. His novels face a young technician with the hostile atmosphere of a small city; that is done with an intolerance similar to which he condemns (''Doña Perfecta'', ''Gloria'', ''The family of León Roch''). To this group, although devoid of thesis, belongs his favorite novel, ''Marianela'', a tragic idyll between a blind man and an ignorant and ugly girl, who decides to flee when his loved recovers the sight, afraid to show her face to him, and she dies when he marries another woman.
Later, between 1881 and 1915, he published 24 novels whose set constitutes a species of "human comedy" of the daily life of Madrid. They maintained progressive, but less offensive, thesis. Their interest was centered in the middle-class, contemplated with exactitude and melancholy. Between this set of novels stand out: ''La de Bringas''; ''Fortunata y Jacinta'', his most important work; ''Miau'', a dramatic vision of the bureaucracy of the time; ''Torquemada in the bonfire'', a study of the avarice; ''Mercy'', with personages of low extraction.

Plays

Pérez Galdós initiated very late his career as a dramatic author. Between his works stand out ''The crazy woman of the house'', ''The daughter of San Quintín'', ''Electra'' (whose opening caused social commotion) and ''The Grandfather'', adapted cinematographically by José Luis Garci. The galdosian theater is characterized by its sincerity and nonconformism, although his theater language may be old fashioned at the moment.

Importance of Galdós

The success of the ''National Episodes'' and many of his novels and plays was absolute. The critic and the writers of his time considered him to be a genius, although his commitment to the religious, the social and the politics created great adversaries to him. Also the writers of the 98 received his influences, although they revealed against his "chabacanería" or vulgarity (Valle-Inclán, for example, nicknamed him "Don Benito el garbancero" or the chick-pea man), without perhaps noticing that the solely vulgar thing was the lives that he described. At the moment he is considered as one of the first Spanish novelists.

Emilia Pardo Bazán

Main articles: Emilia Pardo Bazán

Emilia Pardo Bazán was born in La Coruña in 1851. Unique daughter of the counts of Pardo Bazán, she got married being seventeen years old and she settled in Madrid. She was a woman with an ample culture, she made numerous trips, and a Chair of Literature in the University of Madrid was created for her, city where she died in 1921.

Work

Between her studies on the literature of the present time, ''The trembling question'' stands out, and although in it she does not accept the naturalistic materialism, she defends a realistic attitude and she faces with those who maintain that evil can only appear in literature to be defeated.
Her style was energetic and she deepened in difficult problems and situations. She wrote hundreds of stories that she published reunited, as the ''Stories of Marianela''. But her literary production enjoys greater importance in novels such as ''A trip of fiancès'', which narrates the story of a marriage between a mature man and a young incult, wealthy woman; or ''The tribune'', the most naturalist of her novels, where she describes the hard proletarian life in a tobacco factory. Also these are of extreme importance: ''Los pazos de Ulloa'' and ''The mother Nature'', with Galician personages and landscapes, with an enthusiastic argument and sometimes violent.

Luis Coloma

Main articles: Luis Coloma

Luis Coloma (Jerez de la Frontera, January 1851 - Madrid, 1914), son of a famous doctor, being twelve years old he entered the preparatory Naval school of San Fernando (1863), but later he left and he received the master's degree in Law by the University of Seville, although he never got to exert the lawyer profession. He became a member of the Real Academia in 1908 and he died in 1914.
He cultivated literature with great success among the readers. He wrote two important novels: ''Smallness'' and ''Boy''. In the first he makes a critic of the high Madrilenian society in the years previous to the monarchic Restoration (1814) in the figure of Alfonso XII, son of the overthrown Isabel II. Later he published solely narrations of historical character, like ''Jeromín'', on Don Juan de Austria.

Leopoldo Alas (Clarín)

Main articles: Leopoldo Alas


Leopoldo Alas was born in Zamora (1852), although he always felt deeply Asturian. He made his studies of Law in Oviedo, and his doctorate in Madrid, where he lost the faith. From then he would live in permanent spiritual fight, of which he gives testimony in his work. Being twenty-three years old he used in his writings the pseudonym of Clarín. University professor at the University of Oviedo (1883), he defended republican ideas, but soon he got tired of politics. In 1892, a crisis of conscience gave him back the faith, although he would not arrive at the extremes of the catholic orthodoxy. He died in Oviedo in 1901.

Work

Clarín had a great prestige as a literary critic. His articles demonstrate his great knowledge and rectitude of judgement (expressed in many occasions with offensive sarcasm). His articles, that gave him a feared authority in the Spanish literary panorama, were compiled by the author in volumes like ''Singles of Clarín'' and ''Paliques''.
He also cultivated the short story and the brief novel; he published more than seventy small works of this sort. Among the first short stories that he composed, ''Pipá'' (1879) stands out, which counts the tragedy of a rascal from Oviedo. Also ''Good bye, Cordera'' deserves mention, a classic dramatic idyll.
But his facet as novelist is fundamentally recognized by the only two novels that he wrote: ''La Regenta'' and ''Her only son''. The first of them (1885) is the most important. With clear influences of ''Madame Bovary'' by Flaubert, it physically and morally depicts Vetusta (metaforic name of Oviedo) as a prototype of a Spanish city slept in the traditionalism. Alas used a naturalistic technique, but he did not paint squalid atmospheres like Zola (whose action takes place in the bourgeoisie); instead, pesimism appears with evident characteristics of tenderness and irony. In ''La Regenta'' the consciences start to debate (in special the one of its protagonist Ana Ozores, of character similar to Emma Bovary), in their fight against their duty and the atmosphere, giving an image of the city that many considered insulting. The novel was quickly condemned by the Church, although with the passage of time Clarín and the bishop established a frank friendship. Today ''La Regenta'' is considered to be a summit novel of the Spanish Realism, next to ''Fortunata y Jacinta'' by Galdós.

Armando Palacio Valdés

Main articles: Armando Palacio Valdés

Armando Palacio Valdés (Entralgo, Asturias, 1853 - Madrid, 1938) was educated in Avilés and finished the baccalaureate in Oviedo; he followed the career of Laws in Madrid. He directed the ''European Magazine'', where he published articles that he soon reunited in ''Semblanzas literarias'' (1871). To the death of José María de Pereda in 1905, he assumed his position in the Real Academia de la Lengua.
Great friend of Clarín, he wrote several important novels, like ''Marta y María'', in which the two Biblical sisters are transferred to a contemporary atmosphere that fights the false mysticism. The most popular of his works is ''The sister of San Sulpicio'', where he narrates the adventures that precede the marriage of a Galician doctor with the protagonist, a nun without vocation that does not renew her votes. Also it is possible to emphasize ''The lost village'', a dramatic history of a town degraded by the mining operation.

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Main articles: Vicente Blasco Ibáñez


Vicente Blasco Ibáñez was born in Valencia in 1867. He maintained radical republican ideas by which he underwent arrests and exile. He was a deputy during seven legislatures. In 1909 he left to Argentina in search for fortune, but his attempt failed. He defended the allies during World War I (1914-1918); with that background he wrote ''The four riders of the Apocalypse'', a novel of great world-wide success. He followed a life of a cosmopolitan millionaire and many of his stories were adapted to the cinema in Hollywood. He died in 1928 in Menton, Côte d'Azur. His rests were transferred to Valencia in 1933, where they were received triumphantly.
Blasco produced an enormous work of novels; works acclimated in Valencia or its province, so intensely loved by the writer, stand out (''Arroz y tartana'', ''La barraca'', ''Entre naranjos'', ''Cañas y barro''). He reflected his political, social and antireligious ideas in ''The cathedral'' or ''The warehouse'', although as previously commented, his fame is due to ''The four riders of the Apocalypse'' to a great extent, that treats on familiar dramas during the Great War.
Nevertheless, the Blasco Ibáñez better treated by the critic is the one of Valencian inspiration. Sometimes he has been considered the Spanish Zola because he shares with the French novelist a subversive attitude, predilection for squalid atmospheres, preoccupation for the biological inheritance, etc. He writes intensely and his style can be described as coarse, although it does not lack images of plastic purity. Because of his age, he could have belonged to the Generation of the 98, but his worldly spirit differs from the ascetism and the culture of those writers.

The poetry

It is certain that towards the second half of the 19th century the novel evolved quickly towards Realism, but this did not happen to the lyric and to the theater, whose transformation was less violent and still continued to be impregnated of Romanticism until the end of the century.
This late Romanticism is more apparent than real; sometimes it lacks basis and the lyric exaltation over which the true romantic abandoned himself. This is due to the society, because that was the moment in which the bourgeoisie would consolidate the Restoration of 1875. This society, that was laying the foundations of Capitalism and was taking the first steps of industrialization in the country, did not leave capacity for the people who admired the art in an unselfish form.
The most representative writers are Gaspar Núñez de Arce and Ramón de Campoamor, sometimes assigned to the Romanticism as opponents to the movement, because this delayed Romanticism still had small vestiges left with Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and Rosalía de Castro.

Ramón de Campoamor

Main articles: Ramón de Campoamor

Ramón de Campoamor was born in Navia (Asturias) in 1817, and died in 1901. He belonged to the Moderate Party, in addition to being employee of Treasury, governor and deputy. He wrote treaties on philosophical subjects (''The absolute''), dramatic plays, and poems of epic and philosophical pretensions (''Columbus'', ''The universal drama'' and ''El licenciado Torralba'').
Nevertheless, his most personal creations are his small poems, like ''Humoradas'', ''Doloras'' and ''Small poems''. With them he tried to break up with Romanticism, creating a poetry in accordance with the moment, prosaic, simple, skeptical and in some cases ironic, with a moral that is usually trivial. Today it can be considered to be simple by the scholars. In any case, Campoamor explained his innovating ideas in ''Poetic'', where he says:
:''The poetry is the rythmical representation of a thought by means of an image, and expressed in a language that can be said in prosa neither with more naturalness nor with less words... Only the rhythm should separate the language of the verse from the typical one of the prose... Being unpleasant to me the art by the art and the special dialect of the Clasicism, it has been my constant persistence to arrive at the art by the idea and to express this one in the common language, revolutionizing the basis and the aspect of the poetry.''

Gaspar Núñez de Arce

Main articles: Gaspar Núñez de Arce

Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1834-1903) was born in Valladolid. He was Governor of Barcelona, Deputy and overseas Minister.
He wrote dramas, such as ''The bundle of firewood'', that deals with the theme of the prince Don Carlos, son of Felipe II, a subject already treated by Schiller; although his better valued work is constituted by his poetry and his extensive poems.
Núñez de Arce took care of the expression, but his poems are loaded with political artificialness (as in ''Shouts of the combat'', where he tried to obtain a civil and patriotic poetry) in exalted speeches of philosophical cut (''The doubt''). It is usually attributed to him the abuse of a too easy rhetoric. He also wrote stories or legends in verse, like ''An idyll'', ''The fishing'' and ''The vertigo''.

Other poets

Although less important, there were also other numerous poets who followed the realistic tendencies, among them:

★ Ventura Ruiz Aguilera (1820-1881): Born in Salamanca and author of ''National echoes'', patriotic legends, and ''Elegías''.

★ Vicente Wenceslao Querol (1836-1889): Natural of Valencia, author of ''Rimas''.

★ Federico Balart (1831-1905): wrote ''Dolores '', a collection of ''elegías'' written to the death of his wife.

★ Emilio Ferrari (1850-1907): from Valladolid, he imitated Núñez de Arce.

★ José Velarde (1849-1892): as Emilio Ferrari, he followed the steps of Núñez de Arce.

★ Manuel Reina (1856-1905): He shaped in his poems the color of Andalusia, his homeland.

★ Joaquín Bartrina (1850-1880): Born in Barcelona, he took the humor and the ordinariness of Ramón de Campoamor to the extreme, to which he added a materialistic pesimism, in his work ''Something''.

The theater

The Spanish Realist theater describes an arc from the most conservative and acritical positions to the most progressive and acid ones: from the high comedy of Adelardo López de Ayala and Ventura de la Vega, to the ethically anxious theater of Benito Pérez Galdós and the sharp critic of Enrique Gaspar (1842-1902), a dramatist of minorities. Next to these authors, the interest in the Costumbrism that reflected the most conservative bourgeois public was started again, through genres like the zarzuela or género chico, the sainete or the theater per hours. It was fundamentally an evasion theater, which tried not to create problems of conscience to the bourgeois. Next to that, it tried to revitalize the old fashioned conservative value of the honor with initiatives to revive the romantic historical drama by Manuel Tamayo y Baus or by the Neo-Romanticism of the mathematician José Echegaray.

José Echegaray

Main articles: José Echegaray

José Echegaray (1832-1916) was born in Madrid and occupied high political positions. He was a civil engineer, of whose school he was director. He alternated the study of the mathematics and the scientific problems (on which he published two books: ''Popular science'' and ''Scientific vulgarization'') with the dramatic poetry, which, according to Lázaro Carreter, "gives him a certain systematic roughness that shows the effort more that the poetic instinct". In 1904 the Nobel Prize was granted to him, next to Frédéric Mistral.
Echegaray tried to combine two incompatible elements: an exaggerated romanticism with the latent positivism and realism of his time. As a result a contemporary customary theater occurs, by means of romantic procedures, in which --according to the critic-- he abuses the tragic and pathetic situations, and which is characterized so that in each of his works a case of conscience, an ideological problem or, as one of its works is titled, a ''Conflict between the duties'' arises. Among his most outstanding works there are ''The crazy God'', ''Stain that cleans'', ''The great Galeoto'', ''Or madness or sanctity''.

Manuel Tamayo y Baus

Main articles: Manuel Tamayo y Baus

Manuel Tamayo y Baus (1829-1898) was born in Madrid. He was the son of actors and he married the daughter of the famous actor Isidoro Máiquez. He was in permanent contact with the theater and he covered great variety of subjects in his works. He wrote classic tragedies (''Virginia''), romantic dramas (''Madness of love'', on Juana la Loca), Costumbrist theater (''The snow ball'' and ''The positive'') and thesis theater (''Incidents of honor'' and ''The good men''). His most important work is ''A new drama'', in which he shows the theater company of Shakespeare, which is going to represent a drama in which the actor Walton discovers that Alicia, his wife, who plays that role in the work, is unfaithful to him. But what fictitiously happens in the fiction, also happens in the reality: Alicia loves Edmundo and, when playing the work, Walton kill his wife in scene to clean his honor. Finally Shakespeare explains what happened to the public.

Other dramatists

In addition to the mentioned ones, also the following stand out:

★ Adelardo López de Ayala (1828-1865): He occupied high political positions (Minister and President of the Congress). He developed the high comedy with works like ''The percentage'', ''The tile roof of glass'', ''Consolation'' and ''The new Don Juan'', in which he raised moralizing theses.

★ Eugenio Sellés (1844-1926): he wrote ''The Gordian knot'', in which he displayed the problems that the marriage carries.

★ Enrique Gaspar (1842-1902): Author of comedies like ''The frock coat'', ''Decent people'' and ''The circumstances'', which reflect the bourgeois atmosphere of his time.

★ José Feliú y Codina (1847-1897): he wrote the rural drama ''La Dolores'' and regional customary theater.

★ Leopoldo Cano (1844-1934): His most outstanding works are ''La Pasionaria'' and ''The butterfly''.
Among the librettists of zarzuelas, Marcos Zapata, Ricardo de la Vega, José López Silva and Miguel Ramos Carrión stand out; and among the authors of sainetes, Tomás Luceño and Vital Aza stand out.

The critic: Menéndez Pelayo

Main articles: Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo


Menéndez Pelayo was perhaps the summit figure of the Spanish culture in the 19th century, teacher of the thinking, the history, and the contemporary critic. He was born in Santander in 1856 and he studied in several countries. When he was twenty-two years old he obtained a chair in the University of Madrid. When he was twenty-five he was appointed member of the Real Academia Española, and a little later, member of the Real Academia of History. He also directed the Biblioteca Nacional. When he died in 1912 he left as legacy to Santander his valuable personal library.
The work of Menéndez Pelayo is very extensive and counts on a great capacity of synthesis. In his books his love for Spain and a passionate catholicism can be appreciated. He tried to reconstruct all the historical past of Spain, with a revaluation purpose that in several occasions dragged him to strong controversies (for example, the one originated by his book ''The Spanish science''). For many critics he drew the fundamental lines of the Spanish thought in works like ''History of the heterodox Spaniards'' and the ''History of the aesthetic ideas in Spain''. With respect to literary history, he constructed works like ''Origins of the novel'', ''Anthology of lyric poets'' (which finishes at the end of the Middle Ages), the prologues to ''Works of Lope de Vega'', among others.

References

★ López Jiménez, Luis. ''El Naturalismo y España: Valera frente a Zola.'' Madrid: Pearson Alhambra, 1977. ISBN 84-205-0355-X

★ Miralles García, Enrique. ''La novela española de la Restauración (1875-1885): sus formas y enunciados narrativos.'' Barcelona: Puvill, 1979. ISBN 84-85202-12-0

★ Miranda García, Soledad. ''Religión y clero en la gran novela española del siglo XIX.'' Madrid: Pegaso, 1982. ISBN 84-85244-09-5

★ Oleza, Joan. ''La novela del siglo XIX: del parto a la crisis de una ideología.'' Valencia: Bello, 1976. ISBN 84-212-0039-9

★ Pattison, Walter T. ''El naturalismo español: historia externa de un movimiento literario.'' Madrid: Gredos, 1969. ISBN 84-249-0279-3

★ Villanueva Prieto, Francisco Darío. ''Teorías del realismo literario.'' Pozuelo de Alarcón: Espasa-Calpe, 1992. ISBN 84-239-1771-1

★ Many Authors. ''Polémica sobre el realismo.'' Buenos Aires: Tiempo Contemporáneo, 1972.

See also

★ Realism (arts): general overview of the movement

★ Literary realism: realism in international literature

★ Spanish literature: evolution of Spanish literature