Romanticism in Spanish literature
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.
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.
By contrast with the monotonous neoclassic repetition of songs and lyrics, poets proclaimed their right to use all existing variations on meter, to adapt those from other languages, and to innovate where necessary.
His most important works were El estudiante de Salamanca (1839) and El diablo mundo: 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).
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.
The most representative authors were Juan Donoso Cortés (1809–1853) and Jaime Balmes Urpía (1810–1848): 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.
Notable authors represented in this work are the madrileño Ramón de Mesonero Romanos and the Andalusian Serafín Estébanez Calderón.
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.
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.
In this sense, we must emphasize the political satire press of Trienio Liberal (El Zurriago, La Manopla), where there appeared not only social themes, but also customism outlines which were clear precedents of Larra's production.
The emigrants after the absolutist reaction of 1823 returned and together with the new generation (that of José de Espronceda and Larra) they would mark the style of the era, though they had learned much in their years of exile from the advanced presses of the English and the French.
In 1836, the French Girardin initiated in his newspaper La Presse a custom which would have a staggering and lasting success: that of publishing novels by delivery.
With total success as a writer, at 27 years of age, Larra committed suicide with a pistol to the head, it seems, for a woman with whom he maintained an illicit love affair.
Though Larra is famous for his newspaper works, he also worked in other genres, like poetry, short neoclassics and satire (Sátira contra los vicios de la corte, or "Satire against the vices of the court"); the theatre, with the historical tragedy Macías; and finally, the historical novel, with El doncel de don Enrique el Doliente, about a Gallego troubador who kills a husband blinded by jealousy.
He married a widow sixteen years younger than him, but the marriage failed and, fleeing from her, he went to France and then to Mexico in 1855, where the emperor Maximiliano named him director of the National Theater.
It discusses the theme of the famous joker of Seville, written about previously by Tirso de Molina (17th century) and other national and foreign authors.
Later, as he began to practice "right means", adopting the new, latent aesthetic, he wrote his most important works: Aben Humeya y La conjuración de Venecia ("The conspiracy of Venice").
In 1836 he released El trovador ("The troubador"), a work which evoked an enthusiastic response from the public, though it obligated him to bid farewell to his current situation, instituting in Spain an effective custom from France.
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the movement's pre-existing interests in history and legend entered a new stage, and poetry became more sentimental and intimate.
He later secured a monthly income of 500 pesetas (a large sum for the time) while working as a novel critic, but he lost the job in the revolution of 1868.
The couple lived in various places throughout Castile, but Rosalía never felt tied to the region and ultimately managed to settle the family in Galicia.
She died of cancer in Iria Flavia in 1885, and her remains were buried at Santiago de Compostela, a suitable site for a lover of Galicia.
In Pequeños poemas, (Short poems), 31 brief compositions, Campoamor describes the trivialities of the soul of woman, as in El tren expreso (The Express Train).
He wrote the play El haz de leña (The bundle of firewood), whose plot deals with the mysterious death of don Carlos, son of King Philip II of Spain.
