Spanish Romantic Theatre and the Legacy of José Zorrilla

Spanish Romantic Theatre and Its Characteristics

With the triumph of Romanticism in the 1830s, romantic dramas achieved success very quickly. This trend continued until the mid-century. The main theme is love—absolute and ideal—placed above social conventions. The impossibility of achieving this love leads to a tragic end. Romantic destiny is not so much an inexorable fate as it is a melodramatic component that serves to highlight the clash between the protagonists and their reality.

The characters lack psychological evolution. Heroes tend to have unknown or mysterious origins, or they conceal their personalities; they are possessed by absolute passion, and their moods swing abruptly from happiness to despair. Their primary aspirations are freedom and the love of women. The romantic action typically develops within a national historical setting.

The Formal Structure of Romantic Drama

Formally, the romantic drama shares many traits with Baroque theater, though sometimes with a different function:

• Blending tragedy and comedy: Unlike the Baroque style, which aimed to mimic nature, Romanticism uses this blend to enhance the contrast between ideals and reality.
• Rejecting the rule of the three units: Romantic plays do not respect the traditional constraints of time, place, and action.
• Innovation in form: They introduce a mix of verse and prose, though verse and polymetry ultimately prevail. Like Baroque comedy, there is no strict correlation between the content and the type of meters or stanzas (breaking the traditional baroque poetic decorum).

José Zorrilla: The Leading Romantic Dramatist

José Zorrilla is the most successful romantic dramatist. He wrote approximately thirty works, mostly in verse and historical in character. His work is characterized by his ability to approach conflict and maintain interest in dramatized stories, although the outcomes often suffer from superficiality. His most important works include The Shoemaker and the King, Traitor, Unconfessed and Martyr, and Don Juan Tenorio.

The Redemption of Don Juan Tenorio

Don Juan Tenorio develops the myth of Don Juan, but features a transformation in the character of the libertine, who is redeemed from his scandalous life thanks to the angelic love of a woman. It is the conservative version of the Romantic myth of the trickster character, far from the rebellious, satanic type seen in Espronceda's The Student of Salamanca.