Spanish Realism and Naturalism in 19th-Century Literature

Historical Context

• The failure of the revolution of 1850-1868
• The Elizabethan regime of the Bourbon monarchy, 1868
• Restoration of Alfonso XII, 1875-1886
• The labor movement

Realism in 19th-Century Literature and Art

Realism was a literary and artistic movement that attempted to carefully and objectively represent contemporary reality: the daily life and problems of the bourgeois society of the second half of the 19th century.

Romanticism vs. Realism

Romanticism

• One wing rejected bourgeois society and fled to the past.
• Art was seen as a product of inspiration and subjectivity.
• Themes emerged from delusions of fantasy and feelings.
• Heroic characters and rebels clashed with society and the power of destiny.
• Literary genres: lyric and drama.
• Language included tremendous hyperbolic vocabulary, matured by archaisms.

Realism/Naturalism

• Identified with the values of bourgeois society, aiming for reform and criticism.
• Art was seen as a product of direct and meticulous observation of reality, using the scientific method to observe, document, and experiment.
• Themes emerged from contemporary social reality.
• Anonymous and vulgar characters were influenced by society.
• The novel was the emphasized literary genre.
• Colloquial language and dialect were used in dialogues, with a scientific lexicon for the narrator.

Realist Novel (1868-1880)

• Verisimilitude: The plot, characters, and environment of the story, as well as the language, must be real.
• Objective Observation: Direct study of reality that seeks to reflect a photographic document.
• Technique: Thorough and detailed description.
• Omniscient Narrator: Knows everything about the characters.
• Themes: Conflicting love relationships, adultery, conflict between tradition and progress, anticlericalism.
• Author's Intention: Thesis calls for defending ideological positions.

Key Authors and Works

Benito Pérez Galdós (Madrid)

• Fortunata and Jacinta (love triangle)
• Marianela (story of a blind person)
• National Episodes
• Misericordia (beggars)
• Doña Perfecta (thesis novel, used to show that religious intolerance can bring tragedy)
• Tormento

Emilia Pardo Bazán (Galicia)

• Los Pazos de Ulloa

Leopoldo Alas, aka Clarín (Asturias)

• La Regenta

José María Pereda (Cantabria)

• Sotileza (novel of the sea, corruption of subtlety)
• Peñas Arriba (novel of the mountain, Tudanca)
• La Puchera
• El Sabor de la Tierruca

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (Valencia)

• La Barraca, Cañas y Barro, Arroz y Tartana

Juan Valera (Andalusia)

• Juanita la Larga, Pepita Jiménez

Naturalism (From 1880 Onward)

Naturalism emerged in the last quarter of the 19th century. Characters in naturalist novels often had flaws, such as alcohol abuse, portraying the most sordid aspects of realism. Originating in France, it was believed that human beings were not free but determined by three factors: genetics, environment, and education. Notable authors include Émile Zola, Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary), and Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina).