Los Amantes de Teruel / Drama en cuatro actos en verso y prosa

by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch

Romanticism, in its general application to all kinds of literature and to the literatures of all countries where it made itself effectively felt, shows the following characteristics:

1. Subjectivity, the introduction of the personal note, the expression by the author of his own individual feelings and ideas. The Classicist, aiming at universality and completeness, considered only the typical and eternal as suitable material for literature and carefully excluded whatever seemed peculiar to himself; his ideal was to give perfect literary form to ideas and sentiments acceptable to mankind generally, truths of universal application. Originality of idea or sentiment was not of prime importance with him; his aim was rather to give finished form to "what oft was said, but ne'er so well expressed." The aim of the Romanticist, on the other hand, was to turn to literary uses his own individual experiences, to give forceful and effective, rather than elegant, expression to his own peculiar feelings and ideas. This subjectivity led naturally to many abuses; it also led to the production of some of the masterpieces of literature. Lyric poetry, that had almost died of inanition during the period of Classicism, took on new and vigorous life and became again one of the most important literary genres. The mere mention of such famous poets as Byron, Shelley, Heine, Musset, Leopardi, Espronceda, indicates the extent and importance of lyric poetry in the first half of the nineteenth century.

2. Emotional appeal. Classicism made its appeal to the intellect; Romanticism to the emotions. The aim of the Classicist being to give perfect literary expression to the accumulated wisdom of mankind or to reform social, moral, or political conditions by means of ridicule, he accepted logic as his guide. The Romanticist, whose aim it was to express his individual sentiments and ideas, rebelled against the restraints of logic and common sense; his purpose was not to persuade his reader or hearer by logical reasoning, but rather to carry him off his feet by the onrush of his passions and sentiments. The Classicist mistrusted the imagination for fear that it might lead him away from common sense and moderation; the Romanticist turned to it eagerly as the most effective means of conveying to reader or hearer his ardent sentiments and vague aspirations. For the reason then that the Classicist made his appeal to the intellect, mistrusted the imagination, and usually avoided all strong passions except that of indignation, Classicism tended to become more and more prosaic. Romanticism, because of its appeal to the emotions and to the imagination, put new life and power into literature, and immeasurably widened its range. On the other hand the tendency on the part of writers of little ability and less judgment to go to absurd extremes in their efforts to express strange and original ideas and sentiments, to get as far away as possible from the logical and commonplace, led to the production of much absurd writing. This and the attempt of many of them to apply the extreme principles of Romanticism to daily life as well as to literature resulted in the derogatory sense that the word romantic came to have in its ordinary acceptation. The results of Romanticism in its exaggerated form may be seen in the satirical article written in 1837 by Mesonero Romanos, El Romanticismo y los Románticos. This article, highly recommended in this connection, may easily be found in his collected writings Obras, Madrid, 1881, or, better still, it may be studied in the excellent edition of Professor G.T. Northup, Selections from Mesonero Romanos.

3. Spiritual awakening. The latter half of the eighteenth century was a materialistic age. The realities of life were limited to such as could be understood by the five senses and the reasoning faculty. Life and literature for the Classicist meant reasoned submission to things as they were; achievement was the accepted basis of judgment for his life or literature. The Romanticist rebelled against this materialistic view of life; for him the real truths lay beyond the apparent realities; he grasped at the impalpable and infinite, and wished to have his life and literature judged by his aspirations, rather than by his achievements. Hence, too, the vague longings, the gentle melancholy or violent revolt, the spiritual uplift. The new sense of the wonder and glory of the universe, as well as the spiritual reality behind the material, has suggested as a definition of Romanticism the "Renascence of Wonder."

4. Revival of the Middle Ages and national traditions. The Romanticists were inclined to turn away from the prosaic present and to seek material for their writings in the Middle Ages, the time of unrestrained feelings and emotions, of chivalrous adventure and romance, of strong religious faith, of miracles and superstition. The historical novel, in which the powerful imagination of a Walter Scott made the past live again, became popular throughout Europe; innumerable dramas sought their plots in medieval history and legend. Spain, with her rich literature of popular ballads and drama, a storehouse of picturesque legends and traditions, attracted the attention of Romanticists everywhere, so that for Spaniards the movement came to have a patriotic significance. The best Romanticists did not limit themselves to the Middle Ages; they broadened their vision to include the whole past of the human race, whereas the Classicists, fixing their eyes steadily upon ancient Greece and Rome, whenever they were inclined to turn away from the present, ignored entirely the medieval period and the early modern.

5. Picturesqueness. Seeking to give polished expression to the probable and typical, the Classicist abhorred exaggeration and violent contrasts. The Romanticist, on the other hand, was attracted to the grotesque, mingled the ugly and the beautiful, the commonplace and the fantastic; he delighted in striking antitheses.

6. Love of inanimate nature. The Classicist, instead of going directly to Nature for individual inspiration, was content to repeat in new ways the generally accepted ideas regarding natural scenery. His interest lay almost wholly in mankind, so that inanimate Nature usually served as a merely conventional background. The Romanticist loved Nature for its own sake, and many masterpieces of lyric poetry were due to its inspiration. He loved Nature in all her aspects and moods; if these were grandiose or violent, the greater was his admiration.

7. Freedom from rule and conventionality in literary forms and technique. The foregoing characteristics, concerned mainly with the content of Romantic literature, would naturally mean a corresponding revolution in literary form and technique. Rules and conventions had kept accumulating about literature, until by the middle of the eighteenth century, when French Classicism dominated literary Europe, they were so rigid that only a few of the many men of letters were able to produce literature that was not wholly artificial and uninspired. Each kind of literature was supposed to be written in a certain way; narrative poetry had a certain prescribed meter; lyric poetry another; tragedy and comedy should be carefully kept apart. The Romanticist proceeded at once to throw overboard all these rules and conventionalities. Each literary production was to be judged upon its own merits as literature, not upon the closeness of its adherence to any set of rules, and each author was to be at liberty to get his results in any way that he might choose. Hence we find the mingling of literary genres, the neglect of the dramatic unities, the invention of new meters and the revival of old ones.

8. Richness of language. Because of the continual elimination of words considered unsuitable for literary expression, the language of the Classicists was becoming more and more impoverished, diction was becoming more and more stereotyped and artificial. The Romanticists, with their revolutionary ideas as to content, rebelled against any rule or convention that would restrict their choice of words or diction; seeking complete and effective self-expression, they turned to literary use all the resources of the language of their own time and of any other age as well. The result was a great enrichment of language through the effective use of highly colored, picturesque words and diction, as fresh and bright as newly coined pieces of gold.

Such are the general characteristics of the movement that had such a profound effect upon the literatures of western Europe in the closing years of the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. All of them may be observed in the literature produced in Spain during the twenty years from 1830 to 1850, although, naturally, they do not all have the same importance there as in other countries. In a general way it may be said that the movement was not so revolutionary as in France, for example, where Classicism had taken deeper root. Moreover, in Spain, Romanticism meant the revival of some of the literary ideals of the Siglo de Oro, and to this extent at least could hardly be considered revolutionary. The most complete representative of Romanticism in Spanish dramatic literature is the Don Álvaro of Angel de Saavedra, better known as the Duque de Rivas; in this play are to be found all the above-mentioned characteristics, even those that have to do more naturally with lyric poetry, subjectivity and love of nature. Not only does it present Romanticism in its most effective form; it also shows the pitfalls of exaggeration and improbability that even the greatest Romanticists failed to avoid when the check of common sense was removed and free rein was given to the imagination. But since we are here concerned mainly with Los Amantes de Teruel, a play that demands for its understanding and appreciation much less familiarity with the Spanish language than that required by Don Álvaro, the extent to which the masterpiece of Hartzenbusch is representative of Romanticism will now be briefly noted.[5]