Spanish Romanticism: Bécquer and Rosalía de Castro

Romantic Style and Evolution

His style is a very important romantic evocation of nature (naturaleza). He admires the natural world, using materials in volatile or imprecise metrics. Seven-syllable verses are dominated by assonant hendecasyllables (endecasílabos asonantados).

The Second Epoch

In his second epoch, his writing evolves into a purer expression, stripped of all artifice. In the metric, the regular versification of the previous period was replaced by free verse.

The Legends: Supernatural Tales and Morality

The Legends are fantastic stories, usually set in the Middle Ages. Representative characters of romantic passion are caught in supernatural or magical situations. The outcome always has a moral meaning; the conduct of the characters is rewarded or punished by supernatural powers, fulfilling the principle of poetic justice that punishes evil and rewards goodness.

Essential features include:

• Medieval settings and characters.
• The presence of magic and the supernatural.
• The dominant theme of impossible love.
• The presence and magic of personified nature.

Rosalía de Castro: Life and Legacy

Rosalía de Castro was born in Santiago de Compostela. She was the daughter of Teresa Castro, a noble of scarce means. She had no recognized father. In 1858, she married the prestigious Galician intellectual Manuel Murguía. The publication of Galician Songs (Cantares Gallegos) credited her as the initiator of the Rexurdimento.

Her melancholic temperament, fragile health, and the mishaps of her life pervade her poetry with a sentiment of pain and dissatisfaction with life. She died at the age of 48.

Major Works and Poetic Style

Her work includes three books of poetry: Galician Songs, Follas Novas, and On the Banks of the Sar. Galician Songs is a book of exaltation of the Galician land. In her subsequent books of Galician poetry, she cultivates an intimate feeling where saudade prevails—a melancholic mix of anguish and loneliness.

Literary Style and Metrics

Her style is similar to the simple, anti-rhetorical language of Bécquer, utilizing certain symbols. In the metrics, assonance and rhyme predominate with a variety of combinations of stanzas and meters, featuring a strong appearance of verses with 14, 16, and 18 syllables.