19th Century Spanish History

The Absolutist Period (Early 19th Century)

At the beginning of the century, French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte and his army invaded Spain. The Spanish reacted, and Spain became the scene of the War of Independence, which ended with the expulsion of the French. During the war, the Constitution of 1812 was drafted in Cadiz. This caused confrontations between liberals and absolutists led by Ferdinand VII.

The Liberal Period

After the death of Ferdinand VII, liberals sided with his daughter Isabella, confronting those who supported King Ferdinand VII's brother Carlos, who favored absolutism. These clashes were called the Carlist Wars. The Liberals won, implementing reforms such as land redistribution and economic improvements.... Continue reading "19th Century Spain: History, Politics, and Romanticism" »

Poetry Movements in Post-War Spain

The 1940s: Rooted and Uprooted Poetry

Rooted Poetry (Poesía Arraigada)

This movement presents an optimistic vision of reality, though an intimate line often reveals the chaos and pain produced by the war.

Key Themes:

• The country and the glorious past
• Religious fervor and the beauty of the landscape
• Familiar life and traditional metrics

Language and Metric:

Worshipful language and the use of classical forms (e.g., the sonnet).

Uprooted Poetry (Poesía Desarraigada)

Expresses the despair and anguish of man regarding existence and the meaning of life.

Key Themes:

• The meaning of life and suffering in this world
• God's lack of response to pain

Language and Metric:

Uses a lexicon reflecting violent despair and anguish. Utilizes... Continue reading "Spanish Literature 1940s-1950s: Movements, Themes, and Authors" »

Key Avant-Garde Movements of the 20th Century

Futurism: Speed, Dynamism, and Technology

Founded by Marinetti, Futurism proclaimed a complete break with the past and tradition. It glorified war, magnified sport, speed, dynamism, technical inventions, and adventure, expressing a worship of the "I" and youth.

Literary Techniques of Futurism:

• Destruction of syntax (using the infinitive verb form as the only valid tense).
• Elimination of the adjective and the adverb.
• Abolition of punctuation and capitalization.
• Use of arithmetic signs and musical words.
• Emphasis on absolute freedom of expression.

Cubism: Intellectual Art and Literary Collage

Cubism was born as a pictorial art movement in Paris. It was an intellectual movement requesting the participation of... Continue reading "20th Century Avant-Garde Movements: Futurism to Surrealism" »

Spanish Theater in the Postwar Period

The postwar period affected theater much more than other genres. The economic crisis reduced theatrical productions, and censorship limited authors' creativity, prohibiting the display of certain works.

The loss or exile of great masters, like Lorca, Valle-Inclán, or Casona, significantly affected Spanish theater during this era. We distinguish three major trends:

• Bourgeois Theater
• Social Theater
• Experimental Theater

Bourgeois Theater

During the dictatorship, a commercial theater emerged, friendly in tone and intended for a bourgeois public seeking escapist comedy and entertainment.

It was a technically well-resolved theater which, due to censorship, took refuge in absurd humor and wit to develop a very mild criticism... Continue reading "Spanish Postwar Theater: Trends and Key Playwrights" »

The Prose of Mariano José de Larra

Mariano José de Larra was born in Madrid and spent part of his childhood in France. In Spain, he studied with the Escolapians and the Jesuits. Upon his return to Madrid, he dedicated himself to literature; censorship would occupy his attention after the translation of several French works. He published five issues of El Duende Satírico del Día and also wrote for the Revista Española and El Observador. He traveled through various European countries. Although he obtained a record as a deputy, his moderate support for the sector earned him many political criticisms. To his political disillusionment was joined the abandonment by his lover, leading him to commit suicide with a shot to the head.

Artículos de

Political Equilibrium and Monarchical Power in Rome

In the Roman Republic, the magistrates and judges were the leading exponents of executive power. Rome represented not only political power but also a system where politics and religion were perfectly regulated. The political career, or cursus honorum, typically lasted 10 years, spanning between the ages of 28 and 38 in the early days, and later between 31 and 43 following the reforms of the Gracchi. This period represented the full maturity of the individual. The career consisted of four distinct rungs, and one could not climb to higher ranks without having served in a lower position.

The Roman Senate: Institutional Core

The Senate was the most important institutional organ of the Roman Republic.... Continue reading "Roman Republic Political Structure: Magistrates and Senate" »

Prose Fiction in the Spanish Golden Age

The Picaresque Novel

The pessimism caused by the decline of the political and economic boom of the peninsular kingdoms produced a strong bearish sentiment in literature. This pessimism finds its maximum expression in picaresque novels. The social and satirical characterization prominent in the Renaissance stage transforms into disappointment and nostalgia.

Therefore, the picaresque novels of this second period have certain differential features compared to Lazarillo de Tormes:

• The novel takes on more moralizing scenes, often captured in burlesque, and there is less psychological realism in them. The author seeks brilliance and is often detached from the character's actions.
• The main character remains an antihero,

The 20th Century Spanish Novel

The Novel in the Early 20th Century

The realist novel was conceived as a copy of reality, describing environments, customs, and ways of life, while providing a psychological profile of the characters. The action takes place in recognizable, natural settings. Realism often brings a deterministic idea of existence, where man's behavior is marked by biological inheritance. Among the novelists of the realist tradition, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez is emphasized.

The Novel of the Generation of '98

The term Generation of '98 is due to Azorín, who nominated a series of articles referring to a group of young writers who began publishing toward the end of the century. They all shared a similar attitude of protest against society... Continue reading "Spanish Novel: Realism and the Generation of 1898" »

Jorge Manrique: Life and Poetic Innovation

Jorge Manrique was born in 1440 into a powerful family of the Castilian nobility. Both his life and his literary activity were deeply marked by his clan membership. He was devoted to political and military life, enjoying the privileges of the nobility and participating actively in their struggles. He died in the field of battle in 1479.

In literary terms, he maintained relationships with his relatives, such as Gómez Manrique, and gained experience in courtly circles. In these environments, he wrote mainly love poetry that followed the guidelines of the Galician-Portuguese school.

Major Works and Style

His most significant poetic work includes:

• Love poetry
• Three burlesque poems
• Moral charts
• Coplas a la muerte

XX Hispanoamericana: LÍRICA — a glorious moment occurs when modernism manifests itself as a movement of political affirmation and cultural renewal. In the first years of the twentieth century, modernism reaches its fullness in Rubén Darío, José Martí, and Julio Herrera y Reissig. It had great influence until 1920, when it is followed by the avant-garde.

Modernism arises with the arrival at the end of the nineteenth century of writers such as José Martí, Rubén Darío and José Asunción Silva, who moved away from a specifically European literary canon and sought an identity in the colonial period. This development took place when Romanticism and the early nineteenth-century independence movements were reshaping the various Hispano-American... Continue reading "Latin American Literature: Modernism, Boom & Magical Realism" »