Footnote 3:[ (return) ] The father of Fernán Caballero.
In this period of transition one of the first prominent men of letters to show the effects of romanticism was Francisco MARTÍNEZ DE LA ROSA (1787-1862). Among his earlier writings are a Poética and several odes in honor of the heroes of the War of Independence against the French. After his exile in Paris he returned home imbued with romanticism, and his two plays, Conjuración de Venecia (1834) and Abén Humeya (1836: it had already been given in French at Paris in 1830), mark the first public triumph of romanticism in Spain. But Martínez de la Rosa lacked force and originality and his works merely paved the way for the greater triumph of the Duke of Rivas. Ángel de Saavedra, DUQUE DE RIVAS (1791-1865), a liberal noble, insured the definite triumph of romanticism in Spain by the successful performance of his drama Don Álvaro (1835). At first a follower of Moratín and Quintana, he turned, after several years of exile in England, the Isle of Malta and France, to the new romantic school, and casting off all classical restraints soon became the acknowledged leader of the Spanish romanticists. Among his better works are the lyric Al faro de Malta, the legendary narrative poem El moro expósito and his Romances históricos. The Romances are more sober in tone and less fantastic,—and it should be added, less popular to-day,—than the legends of Zorrilla. After a tempestuous life the Duke of Rivas settled quietly into the place of director of the Spanish Academy, which post he held till his death.
José de ESPRONCEDA (1808-1842) was preëminently a disciple of Byron, with Byron's mingling of pessimism and aspiration, and like him in revolt against the established order of things in politics and social organization. His passionate outpourings, his brilliant imagery and the music of his verse give to Espronceda a first place amongst the Spanish lyrical poets of the nineteenth century. Some of his shorter lyrics (e.g. Canto á Teresa) are inspired by his one-time passion for Teresa with whom after her marriage to another he eloped from London to Paris. The poet's best known longer works are the Diablo mundo and the Estudiante de Salamanca, which are largely made up of detached lyrics in which the subjective note is strikingly prominent. Espronceda was one of those fortunate few who shine in the world of letters although they work little. Both in lyric mastery and in his spirit of revolt, Espronceda holds the place in Spanish literature that is held in English by Byron. He is the chief Spanish exponent of a great revolutionary movement that swept over the world of letters in the first half of the nineteenth century.
José ZORRILLA (1817-1893) first won fame by the reading of an elegy at the burial of Larra. Zorrilla was a most prolific and spontaneous writer of verses, much of which is unfinished in form and deficient in philosophical insight. But in spite of his carelessness and shallowness he rivaled Espronceda in popularity. His verses are not seldom melodramatic or childish, but they are rich in coloring and poetic fancy and they form a vast enchanted world in which the Spaniards still delight to wander. His versions of old Spanish legends are doubtless his most enduring work and their appeal to Spanish patriotism is not less potent to-day than when they were written. Zorrilla's dramatic works were successful on the stage by reason of their primitive vigor, especially Don Juan Tenorio, El Zapatero y el rey and Traidor, inconfeso y mártir. This "fantastic and legendary poet" went to Mexico in 1854 and he remained there several years. After that date he wrote little and the little lacked merit.
Gertrudis Gómez de AVELLANEDA (1814-1873) was born in Cuba but spent most of her life in Spain. Avellaneda was a graceful writer of lyrics in which there was feeling and melody but little depth of thought. With her the moving impulse was love, both human and divine. Her first volume of poems (1841) probably contains her best work. Her novels Sab and Espatolino were popular in their day but are now fallen into oblivion. Some of her plays, especially Baltasar and Munio, do not lack merit. Avellaneda is recognized as the foremost poet amongst the women of nineteenth-century Spain.
Two of the most successful dramatists of this period, García Gutiérrez and Hartzenbusch, were also lyric poets. Antonio GARCÍA GUTIÉRREZ (1813-1884), the author of El trovador, published two volumes of mediocre verses. Juan Eugenio HARTZENBUSCH (1806-1880) was, like Fernán Caballero, the child of a German father and a Spanish mother. Though an eminent scholar and critic, he did not hesitate in his Amantes de Teruel to play to the popular passion for sentimentality. He produced some lyric verse of worth. Manuel BRETÓN DE LOS HERREROS (1796-1873) was primarily a humorist and satirist, who turned from lyric verse to drama as his best medium of expression. He delighted in holding up to ridicule the excesses of romanticism. Mention should be made here of two poets who had been, like Espronceda, pupils of Alberto Lista. The eclectic poet MARQUÉS DE MOLINS (Mariano Roca de Togores: 1812-1889) wrote passively in all the literary genres of his time. VENTURA DE LA VEGA (1807-1865) was born in Argentina, but came to Spain at an early age. He was a well-balanced, cautious writer of mediocre verses that are rather neo-classic than romantic.
A marked reaction against the grandiose exaggerations of later romanticism appears in the works of José SELGAS y Carrasco (1824-1882), a clever writer of simple, sentimental verses. At one time his poetry was highly praised and widely read, but for the most part it is to-day censured as severely as it was once praised. Among the contemporaries of Selgas were the writer of simple verses and one-time popular tales, Antonio de TRUEBA (1821-1889) and Eduardo BUSTILLO, the author of Las cuatro estaciones and El ciego de Buenavista. Somewhat of the tradition of the Sevillan school persisted in the verses of Manuel CAÑETE and Narciso CAMPILLO (1838-1900) and in those of the poet and literary critic José AMADOR DE LOS RÍOS.
The Sevillan Gustavo Adolfo BÉCQUER (1836-1870) wrote perhaps the most highly polished Spanish verse of the nineteenth century. His Rimas are charged with true poetic fancy and the sweetest melody, but the many inversions of word-order that were used to attain to perfection of metrical form detract not a little from their charm. His writings are contained in three small volumes in which are found, together with the Rimas, a collection of prose legends. His prose work is filled with morbid mysticism or fairy-like mystery. His dreamy prose is often compared to that of Hoffmann and his verses to those of Heine, although it is doubtful if he was largely influenced by either of these German writers. Bécquer sings primarily of idealized human love. His material life was wretched and it would seem that his spirit took flight into an enchanted land of its own creation. Most human beings love to forget at times their sordid surroundings and wander in dreamland; hence the enduring popularity of Bécquer's works and especially of the Rimas. Bécquer has been widely imitated throughout the Spanish-speaking world, but with little success. In this connection it should be noted that the Spanish poets who have most influenced the Spanish literature of the nineteenth century, both in the Peninsula and in America, are the Tyrtaean poet Quintana, the two leading romanticists Espronceda and Zorrilla and the mystic Bécquer.
Like most writers in Latin lands, Juan VALERA y Alcalá Galiano (1824-1905) and Marcelino MENÉNDEZ Y PELAYO (1856-1912) began their literary career with a volume or two of lyric verses. Valera's verses have perfect metrical form and evince high scholarship, but they are too learned to be popular. The lyrics of Menéndez y Pelayo have also more merit in form than in inspiration and are lacking in human interest. Both authors turned soon to more congenial work: Valera became the most versatile and polished of all nineteenth century Spanish writers of essays and novels; and Menéndez y Pelayo became Spain's greatest scholar in literary history. The popular novelist, Pedro Antonio de ALARCÓN (1833-1891), wrote lyrics in which there is a curious blending of humor and skepticism. The foremost Spanish poet of the closing years of the nineteenth century was Ramón de CAMPOAMOR y Campoosorio (1817-1901) who is recognized as the initiator in Spain of a new type of verse in his Doloras and Pequeños poemas. The doloras are, for the most part, metrical fables or epigrams, dramatic or anecdotal in form, in which the author unites lightness of touch with depth of feeling. The pequeño poema is merely an enlarged dolora. Campoamor disliked Byron and he disliked still more the sonorous emptiness that is characteristic of too much Spanish poetry.[4] In philosophy he revered Thomas à Kempis; in form he aimed at conciseness and directness rather than at artistic perfection. His poetry lacks enthusiasm and coloring, but it has dramatic interest.
Footnote 4:[ (return) ] Menéndez y Pelayo (Ant. Poetas Hisp.-Am., I, p. lv) says: "Al fin españoles somos, y á tal profusión de luz y á tal estrépito de palabras sonoras no hay entre nosotros quien resista."