Key Figures and Prose of Spanish Romanticism

Spanish Romantic Literature: Authors and Prose

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer: The Rimas

The Third group (Rimas XXX-LI) is about the failure of love. The woman is the executioner of the poet's illusions, and her portrait becomes bleak.

The Fourth group (Rimas LII-LXXIX) shows loneliness and anguish. The world is a hostile place, and the poet is isolated within himself.

Technical Aspects of the Rimas

The most important technical characteristics of the Rimas are their brevity and condensation, simple rhetoric, and symbolism of the reality of love. The stanza form of the poems is free, but with a predominance of assonance rhyme and verses of seven (heptasyllable) and eleven (hendecasyllable) syllables.

Rosalía de Castro: Life and Works

Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885) was a bilingual writer: she wrote in Castilian and Galician. She played an important role in the renaissance of Galician literary production.

Major Poetic Works

• Her first volume of verse was La Flor (with Espronceda's influence).
• In 1863, she published A mi madre and then her Cantares Gallegos, with themes and forms of the land.
• In 1880, she published, also in Galician, Follas Novas, concerned with Galician society.
• In 1885, she published her famous book En las orillas del Sar, dominated by religious and intimate sentimentality, with melancholy and loneliness as key notes. The authenticity of the poetic voice, lexical simplicity and transparency make this book one of the most important of the nineteenth century.

Spanish Romantic Prose

The Historical Novel Genre

At the turn of the century, a highly successful genre began: the historical novel, although there are no major masterworks. The most important work is El Señor de Bembibre by Enrique Gil y Carrasco.

Costumbrismo and Literary Journalism

This intention was expressed through criticism and humor, written for newspapers and magazines in the form of articles. The most important writers, apart from Larra, were Ramón Mesonero Romanos and Serafín Estébanez Calderón.

Mariano José de Larra (1809-1837)

Despite his short life and suicide, he was a very prolific author who cultivated all genres, but his importance lies in his journalistic articles. He worked in newspapers like El Duende Satírico del Día, El Pobrecito Hablador, and El Observador.

His most important articles were those on customs (artículos de costumbres). His attitude is critical, ironic, and poignant when dealing with the faults and defects of society. He launches darts against ignorance, arrogance, hypocrisy, bullfights, and against the police and civil service with articles like 'El café de la mañana' or 'El castellano viejo'.

His literary criticism articles focused on theater premieres. His political articles correspond to his last years of life and show a transformation: a new Larra, one of disappointment and despair, leading up to his suicide. The structure of his articles is variable. He presents himself as a witness to events or writes in the form of letters or dreams. The language of his articles is natural, clear, and concise, far from rhetorical excess.

Didactic Aim of Costumbrismo

Within narrative works, folkloric types were very popular, characterized by the description of folk customs with a didactic purpose: to improve society.