19th Century Romanticism: Authors, Features, and Textual Analysis

Romanticism: Cultural and Artistic Movement

Romanticism was a cultural and artistic movement that was established from 1830 to 1855, although it actually lasted until 1875. It is often characterized as a century of darkness and unreason, dwelling heavily on pessimism.

Key Characteristics of Romanticism

All features of the movement are based on dissatisfaction and a rejection of rationalism:

• Individualism
• Subjectivism
• Sentimentality
• Irrationalism
• Freedom (especially creative freedom)
• Nature
• Ruin
• Flight (escape in time and space, often through fantasy)

Romantic Literary Genres and Authors

Romantic Poetry

• Espronceda: Author of The Devil's World. He is representative of romantic poetry, a romantic who wants to change the times and seeks a better future.
• Bécquer: Author of Rhymes. A timeless romantic poet. For Bécquer, the expression of the poem is often impossible. He died from a very romantic disease: tuberculosis.
• Rosalía de Castro: Author of On the Banks of Sar (known for its melancholic style). She began writing in Galician and later wrote in Castilian.

Romantic Theater

• Duke of Rivas: Don Álvaro
• Zorrilla: Don Juan Tenorio

Romantic Prose

Romantic prose included:

• Legends
• Historical novels (Gil Carrasco, Larra)
• Costumbrist Sketches (objectification of the subjective, exemplified by Mesonero Romano)
• Articles of Customs (critical reality, exemplified by Larra)

Linguistic Analysis: Understanding the Text

The text is the maximum unit of communication through which a complete message is expressed.

Essential Features of a Text

A text possesses several key features:

• Variable length (independent extension)
• Can be oral or written
• Possesses a comprehensive meaning
• Is issued with a specific intention (to inform, persuade, create beauty, etc.)
• Possesses properties such as adequacy, coherence, and cohesion
• It does not necessarily have to be very long

Textual Cohesion Mechanisms

These mechanisms are used to structure statements and connect parts of a text:

• Textual Marker: Groups organized grammatical elements, connections, and relationships between parts of the text. Examples include organizers, connectors, and reformulators.
• Repetition: The recurrence of certain terms throughout the text.
• Ellipsis: The elimination of a term (usually verbs or nouns) that is contextually obvious.

Types of Textual Discourse

Expository Text

This type of text is intended to explain, publicize, and present knowledge or ideas to recipients in an objective, clear, and necessary manner. It is common in the humanistic and scientific fields.

Description

Description is a textual type that translates reality into linguistic code. It can be:

• Objective: Detailing the component parts of reality.
• Subjective: Focusing on the feelings the reality evokes and the more literary impression the writer gives to the description.