Understanding Romanticism: Key Aspects, Literature, and Authors

Understanding Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic and literary movement that triumphed in the mid-nineteenth century. Its development was influenced by social and political changes that definitively settled the last vestiges of the old regime.

Historical Context

The French Revolution, occurring in the late eighteenth century, provided political, ideological, and social benefits that spread throughout Europe.

The Industrial Revolution began in England in the late eighteenth century and spread throughout Europe during the nineteenth century.

Key Features of Romantic Literature

Mariano José de Larra is a leading author of the Romantic period.

Rebellion

Romantics questioned the morality of their time and bourgeois values.

Avoidance

Confrontation with the reality of society encouraged a flight into the past.

Projection in Nature

Romantics expressed their emotions through nature.

Nationalism

Romanticism emphasized the genuine manifestations of the villages where popular forms of literature emerged.

Romantic Poetry

Romantic poetry presents these characteristics:

• Use of polarimetry
• Characteristic themes include ideal love, passion, and loneliness
• Preference for rhetorical devices

Types of Romantic Poetry

1. Lyrical: Expresses the feelings and the poet's inner world (e.g., Espronceda, Bécquer, and Rosalía de Castro)
2. Narrative: Features frequent stories based on legends, with Espronceda as a key figure.

Romantic Prose

Romantic prose works include both fiction and journalistic texts.

1. Fiction: Bécquer's Legends
2. Journalistic: Mariano José de Larra

Romantic Drama

Romantic dramas often feature a mysterious hero marked by an inevitable and tragic fate. The events take place in somber settings and use lugubrious rhetoric.

Key Authors of Romanticism

Rosalía de Castro

Rosalía de Castro embodies the most intimate aspects of Romanticism. She composed in Galician "Follas Novas" and "Galician Songs," and in Castilian, "On the shores of Sar." Her writing had a straightforward and anguished vision of reality.

José de Espronceda

Born in Almendralejo in 1808, Espronceda combatted against absolutism from a young age, leading to exile until 1833. Upon returning to Spain, he continued his literary and political activities until his death in 1842.

Mariano José de Larra

Born in Madrid in 1809 but educated in France, where his family was exiled in 1813. Upon his return, Larra founded two newspapers: "El Duende Satírico del Día" in 1828 and "El Pobrecito Hablador" in 1832. He later wrote articles under the pseudonym "Fígaro." Due to an emotional crisis, he committed suicide in 1837.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Born in Seville in 1836, Bécquer studied painting in his youth but moved to Madrid at 18 to become a poet. He faced illness, economic hardship, and romantic failures. He died in Madrid in 1870. Bécquer and Rosalía were post-Romantic writers. Bécquer's poetry is cultured in his Rhymes and his prose in his Legends.