Spanish Realist literature

Later, the short era of the First Republic (1873–1874) began, followed by the Restoration of the Borbón dynasty under Alfonso XII (1874–1885), son of Isabel II, after the uprising of Martínez Campos.

Thus, Naturalism adopts a materialist and determinist concept of people as not morally responsible for their actions and the situations in which they are found, because these are determined by the environment and heredity.

From the point of view of the experimenter, the novelist "institutes the experience," moving the characters through a particular story to show that the succession of events will occur in conformity with the demands of determinism.

Emilia Pardo Bazán, commonly considered to be naturalist, addresses Naturalism's reception in Spain in her 1883 article La cuestión palpitante (The Burning Question).

Additionally, passages of texts by authors such as Benito Pérez Galdós have been considered naturalistic, but that has been explicitly rejected by the majority of literary critics.

In Spain, the best literary fruit of the second half of the 19th century was the novel, a consequence of the international blossoming of the genre as an expression of the middle class's rising political power, obtained through successive revolutions (1789, 1820, 1830, 1848).

The values and inquietudes of the middle-class are reflected in the mirror of Realist literature: individualism, materialism, desire for social ascent, and esteem of daily and immutable things.

The fundamental themes of literary Realism are the contrast between traditional farming values and modern urban values, the exodus from the field to the city and inherent social and moral contrasts, the fight for social ascent and moral and economic success, women's dissatisfaction with restrictions against their working outside of the home, and middle-class independence and individualism.

Realism reached its maximum splendor in the second half of the 19th century with authors such as Juan Valera, José María de Pereda, and Benito Pérez Galdós, although it never established a canon as rigorous as that produced by the school of Balzac.

The movement's most exalted and ardent defenders were Benito Perez Galdós and Emilia Pardo Bazán, who provoked one of the most furious conflicts with her 1883 publication of La cuestión palpitante ("The Throbbing Question").

He began his literary production as a costumbrista: inclined to realism with aspects of impressionism, he published Escenas montañosas ("Mountainous scenes").

Later, he would find his ideal formula for the novel, imbuing that costumbrism with a vision which conveyed his love for the landscape and the people of the mountains, with their passions and their characteristic language.

He declared himself to be progressive and anticlerical, but this did not prevent him from forging close friendships with Menéndez y Pelayo and José María de Pereda, of opposite ideologies.

Marianela, one of his more prominent novels of the first epoch, is the story of a tragic relationship between a blind man and an ignorant, ugly girl.

Significant works of this group include La de Bringas (The Bringas Woman), about social climbing; Fortunata y Jacinta, his most important work; Miau, a dramatic vision of the bureaucracy of the time; Torquemada en la Hoguera (Torquemada in the Inferno), a study of greed and avarice; Misericordia (Compassion), with people of less-refined upbringing.

The Generation of '98 were strongly influenced by his writing, although they rebelled against his "chabacanería" or perceived vulgarity; Ramón del Valle-Inclán, for example, nicknamed him "Don Benito el garbancero" or the chick-pea man.

In the first he pens a critique of the high Madrid society in the years previous to the Bourbon Restoration) in the figure of Alfonso XII, son of the overthrown Isabel II.

His articles, which made him a feared authority in the Spanish literary panorama, were compiled in volumes such as Solos de Clarín and Paliques.

With clear influences from Madame Bovary by Flaubert, it physically and morally depicts Vetusta (which was modeled on his hometown of Oviedo) as a prototypical Spanish city steeped in tradition.

Alas employed naturalistic techniques, but he did not paint squalid environs as did Zola; instead, what predominates is a sense of pessimism, tempered by touches of tenderness and irony.

In La Regenta individuals find themselves in conflict with their own consciences (particularly its protagonist Ana Ozores, whose character is similar to Emma Bovary, except that she comes across as more sympathetic and less conniving).

He wrote several important novels, among them Marta y María, in which the two Biblical sisters are transported to a contemporary setting and fight against the false mysticism of the time.

Among these are Arroz y tartana (Rice and Carriage), La barraca (The Farmhouse), Entre naranjos (Among Orange Trees), Cañas y barro (Canes and Clay).

[citation needed] He has been compared with Émile Zola because he shares with the French novelist a subversive attitude, a predilection for squalid environs, and a preoccupation with biological inheritance.

With them he tried to break 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.

He wrote dramas, such as El haz de leña (The bundle of firewood), that deals with the theme of the prince Don Carlos, son of Philip II, a subject already treated by Schiller.

[citation needed] Núñez de Arce was a careful poet, yet his poems are loaded with political artifice (as in Gritos del cobate (Combat Cries), where he endeavored to create a civic and patriotic poetry) in exalted speeches of philosophical musings (La duda, English: Doubt).

Although less important, there were also other poets who followed realism, among them: The Spanish Realist theater contains a wide spectrum of works, from the most conservative and non-critical 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 overwrought theater of Benito Pérez Galdós and the sharp critique of Enrique Gaspar.

He tried to reconstruct all the historical past of Spain, with a revisionist purpose that on several occasions placed him at the center of major controversies (for example, the one originated by his book La ciencia española (The Spanish Science).

In later years she published poetry books and essays such as "Letters to delinquents" (1865), "Ode against slavery" (1866), "Convicts, the people and the executioner" and "The execution of the death sentence" (1867).