In Europe generally the nineteenth century brought to literature a resumption of religious sentiment and of the artistic sense, with their appeal to the emotions, and lyricism became the dominant note in letters. The romanticists turned to history and legend for their material, rather than to contemporary life. The cult of the medieval brought with it much that was sentimental or grotesquely fantastic, but it awakened in the people a renewed interest in their past history. All Spaniards worship the past, for Spain was once great; and when romanticism came from France and England into Spain, it was warmly welcomed. The historical novel flourished beyond measure. The artificial epic in ottava rima, imitated from the Italian, gave way to a flood of pseudo-historical romances which followed the lead of Sir Walter Scott and the elder Dumas. They were mostly weak imitations, carelessly done and without depth or brilliancy. The best presentation of Spanish legends was made by José Zorrilla (1817-1893) in verse: his work has enduring value. But the historical romance turned the mind of the reader away from adventures in classic lands or in the orient, and brought his own land to his attention. It thus caused renewed interest in the one-time native excellence of Spanish literature, and it also paved the way for the national novel of manners. The historical romance has now taken a secondary place in fiction; but it was cultivated till quite recently by so virile and popular a writer as Pérez Galdós.
Before passing on to the modern school of realists, mention must be made of a writer whose influence has been far-reaching. This is Bécquer,[A] a poet, writer of short stories, and journalist. His tales are mostly legendary, and are imbued with morbid mysticism. He is primarily a poet, for even his prose has the poetic fancy, and, to a large extent, the music of verse. Bécquer's lyric verse is perhaps the most finished that was written in Spain during the nineteenth century, although it has less force than that of Núñez de Arce. The dreamy, fairy-like mysticism of Bécquer's writings has been widely imitated throughout the entire Spanish-speaking world.
Although modern realism triumphed in Spain only with the coming of Fernán Caballero's La gaviota in 1848, the ground was prepared in advance by several writers, the more important of whom are Larra, Estébanez de Calderón and Mesonero Romanos.
Larra,[B] many of whose writings appeared over the pen-name Fígaro, was a master of Castilian prose; but even his best work is marred by a morbid distrust of human nature. In his satirical articles he attacks the follies and weaknesses of contemporary Spanish life with biting sarcasm and bitter invective: he criticizes not to reform but to crush. There was in him little milk of human kindness, but he was not afraid of man or devil. He tried his hand at the romantic drama and novel with little success. Larra's most enduring works are his critical reviews and his essays on manners.
Writing with the pen-name El Solitario, Serafín Estébanez de Calderón (1799-1867), gave in his Escenas andaluzas fairly true pictures of the manners and customs of the lower classes of Andalusia in his day. This volume was published in 1847, but many of the articles had appeared much earlier in periodicals.
In 1842 El curioso Parlante, Ramón de Mesonero Romanos (1803-1882), published his Escenas matritenses. The author was a kindly scoffer, and in this work he gave merry pictures of Madrid customs, written simply and accurately in language that was chosen but diffuse.
In 1848 Fernán Caballero[C] published La Gaviota, a story dealing largely with the manners and customs of Andalusia. This work, which has probably been the most widely read of all Spanish novels since Don Quijote, marked the transition from romanticism to present-day realism in Spanish literature, as Flaubert's Madame Bovary did in French letters ten years later. Fernán Caballero was probably influenced by the Escenas andaluzas, the Escenas matritenses and Larra's essays on manners; and it is quite possible that from her German friends came to her some of the modern spirit of scientific investigation that led her to declare the novel to be "not the product of invention, but of observation." She practiced this theory, however, only in part, for her work partakes of both the romantic and the realistic. Her stories usually have a romantic framework of passion and intrigue that is always unreal and often dull; but within this framework, almost in the nature of digressions, there are pictures of home life among the lowly Andalusian peasants that are charming in their simple, refined realism. No better work than that of some of these realistic scenes has ever been done in Spanish fiction, and yet it is nearly always found in bad company. Crimes, sentimental episodes, ultra-Catholic preachments and true pictures of the life of the humble are jumbled together in a queer medley. The work is evidently that of a clever but untrained mind, that was largely controlled by its emotions. Her later works are marred by extreme religiosity and a growing habit of scolding.
It has been well said that the realistic novel in Spain is essentially provincial or regional.[D] The people of the several provinces of Spain differ greatly. The proud, stern Castilian; the gentle, pleasure-loving Andalusian; the Catalán, alert and practical; the light-hearted, turbulent Valencian; and the plodding, dreamy Galician,—all these differ as do the lands in which they dwell. A realistic literature, therefore, that describes accurately the doings and the environment of Spanish villagers must be regional: it can not be broadly national.
After Fernán Caballero had begun to tell of life in southern Spain, Pereda[E] came forth with tales of the northern mountainland, the Montaña, that lies on the shore of the Cantabrian Sea. Pereda was, perhaps, the most provincial, the least cosmopolitan, of modern Spanish writers. An old-fashioned hidalgo, or country gentleman, he rarely left his ancestral home at Polanco, and if he did go away, he was always sorry for it. In politics he was a conservative and a Carlist, and his writings evince a hostile attitude towards modernism. Pereda was the most reactionary, Pérez Galdós one of the most progressive, of modern Spanish writers; but the two men were the best of friends, which goes to show that neither was narrow. Pereda's language is academically correct, with some of the flavor of Cervantes; but his thought is often ponderous, or even obscure. He is at his best when he pictures the uncouth homely life of his highland peasants or simple fisher-folk. This he does with the truthfulness of the most scrupulous realist, but without stooping to pornographic detail. The Escenas montañesas are direct descendants of the Escenas andaluzas and the Escenas matritenses. The better known works of Pereda are Don Gonzalo González de la Gonzalera, Pedro Sánchez, and Sotileza.
In the Spain of the past fifty years, the most cosmopolitan man of letters, and the writer of the most polished prose, has been Juan Valera,[F] poet, novelist, literary critic, and, first of all, diplomat. At one time he also sought to become a realist, but his nature revolted. He was always an idealist, and at times a mystic. Valera's Pepita Jiménez is perhaps the master-piece of Spanish prose fiction of the nineteenth century, and it shows some attempt at realism. His short stories are fantastic and allegorical, or are translations from other languages.