Society of Young Nigerian Writers

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833-91), Spanish writer and politician,

born in Guadix. He served as a member of the Cortes, the national

legislature. Alarcón was noted in his own time for his religious

novels; The Scandal (1875; trans. 1945); a defense of the Jesuits,

caused much discussion. He is now chiefly remembered, however,

for his stories of rustic Spanish life, some of which are collected in

The Three-Cornered Hat (1874; trans. 1891).

Leopoldo Alas y Ureña

Leopoldo Alas y Ureña (1852-1901), Spanish writer, who

used the pseudonym Clarín (“bugle”). As a noted

reviewer of books, he is considered one of Spain's most

influential literary critics of the late 19th century. His

fiction, satirizing provincial and religious attitudes, has

been increasingly praised. The novel La regenta (The

Professor's Wife, 1884-85) is usually compared to the

French novelist Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary,

which it resembles.

Rafael Alberti

Rafael Alberti (1902-1999), Spanish poet, whose first training as an

artist is reflected in A la pintura (On Painting, 1948), a brilliant

attempt to describe one art in terms of another. His first volume of

poetry, Marinero en tierra (A Sailor on Land, 1924), won a Spanish

literary prize in 1925. His masterpiece, however, is considered to be

Sobre los ángeles (1929; Concerning the Angels, 1967), a surrealist

allegory in which angels represent forces in the real world. After the

Spanish Civil War, Alberti immigrated to Argentina, returning to

Spain in 1977.

Vicente Aleixandre y Merlo

Vicente Aleixandre y Merlo (1898-1984), Spanish poet and Nobel

laureate. The lyrical poems in his first book, Ambito (Environment,

1928), show an interest in nature, but, as an antifascist in the 1940s, his

surrealistic, pessimistic free verse became more concerned with human

life, especially with love and death. He widely influenced Spain's poets

after the 1930s. Major collections of his works include Poesías

completas (1960) and Antología total (1975). In 1977 he was awarded

the Nobel Prize in literature.

Mateo Alemán

Mateo Alemán (1547-1610?), Spanish novelist, the first author of

Spanish picaresque novels whose identity is definitely known. He

was born in Seville (Seville), and educated at the University of

Seville. Alemán is best known as the author of the novel The Rogue

(1599; Pt. II, 1604; trans. 1623), which revived the Spanish

picaresque novel, or story of a rogue (Spanish pícaro) and his

adventures. Among Spanish novels of this type The Rogue is ranked

second only to Lazarillo de Tormes, a novel written by an unknown

author before 1555. The Rogue went through more than 15 editions

in five years and has been widely translated.

Azorín

Azorín, pseudonym of JOSÉ MARTÍNEZ RUIZ (1873-1967), Spanish

essayist, novelist, and critic, born in Monóvar, Alicante. He was

active in politics during the early part of his career. The dominant

theme of his writings is timelessness and continuity as symbolized

by the changeless ways of the peasant. He won critical acclaim for

his essays, collections of which include El alma castellana (The

Castilian Soul, 1900), Los pueblos (The Villages, 1904), and

Castilla (1912). Most widely read are his autobiographical novels,

La Voluntad (The Choice, 1902), Antonio Azorín (1903), and Las

confesiones de un pequeño filósofo (Confessions of a Humble

Philosopher, 1904). He brought a new, invigorating style to Spanish

prose.

Azorín also is noted for the perceptive literary criticism contained in

such works as Los valores literarios (Literary Values, 1913) and Al

margen de los clásicos (Marginal Notes to the Classics, 1915).

Pio Baroja y Nessi

Pio Baroja y Nessi (1872-1956), Spanish novelist, whom many critics regard

as the leading Spanish novelist of the 20th century. He was born in San

Sebastián and educated in Madrid as a physician. His first novel was The

House of Aizgorri (1900; translated 1958). It forms part of the trilogy La

tierra vasca (The Basque Country, 1900-09), which also includes The Lord of

Labraz (1903; translated 1926), one of his most admired novels. The work

for which he is best known outside Spain is the trilogy The Struggle for Life

(1904; translated 1922-24), a moving description of life in the slums of

Madrid. His Memorias de un hombre de acción (Memories of a Man of

Action; 20 volumes, 1913-31), consists of a series of loosely connected

episodes revolving around one of his ancestors who lived in the Basque

Country at the time of the Carlist uprisings early in the 19th century. Baroja's

published writings total more than 100 volumes.

Using the Spanish picaresque tradition, Baroja chose for his protagonists the

misfits and outcasts of society, and his novels, although crammed with lively

incident, usually lack plots. A master of the realistic portrayal of character

and setting, especially when he draws on his knowledge of the Basque

country and people, his style is abrupt, vivid, and impersonal, and his

philosophy is pessimistic.

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-70), Spanish poet, born in Seville. He

spent most of his life in Madrid as a free-lance journalist and translator.

His best-known verse is The Infinite Passion (1871; trans. 1924), a

collection of short, lyrical poems. Underscored by a deep, pantheistic

faith, the poems deal mainly with such themes as the struggle for

perfection, despair, and the joys of love. Bécquer's best-known prose

works are the Romantic Legends of Spain (1871; trans. 1909). The

stories are characterized by a quality of elusiveness and mystery and a

remarkably delicate, musical prose. He is regarded as one of the most

important lyric poets of 19th-century Spain.

Jacinto Benavente y Martínez

Jacinto Benavente y Martínez (1866-1954), Spanish

playwright, critic and Nobel laureate, born in Madrid, and

educated at the University of Madrid. He attracted attention

with a critical work, Cartas de mujeres (The Letters of

Women, 1893), and a comedy, El nido ajeno (Other Birds'

Nests, 1894). Social climbers, the wealthy, and feudal

institutions are among the subjects he attacked in his plays.

In 1922 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature;

subsequently he toured Latin America and the United States

with a company performing his works. In addition to plays

for children, he wrote many comedies and tragedies,

including The Bonds of Interest (1907; trans. 1917) and The

Passion Flower (1913; trans. 1917).

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez

Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (1867-1928), Spanish novelist, born in the

Valencia region. He joined the Republican movement in his youth and

became editor of an antimonarchist newspaper. In 1896 he was arrested

for his political activities and sentenced to two years at hard labor.

Blasco Ibáñez subsequently served (1898-1907) several consecutive

terms as a Republican Party deputy in the Spanish Parliament.

His novels, which contain realistic and vivid depictions of life in

Valencia, achieved far more renown outside Spain than in his own

country. His first important literary success was La barraca (The Cabin,

1898), a novel exposing social injustice in the Valencia countryside. His

other works in the regional genre include Reeds and Mud (1902; trans.

1928), The Shadow of the Cathedral (1903; trans. 1909), and Blood and

Sand (1908; trans. 1913). His most famous work, The Four Horsemen of

the Apocalypse (1916; trans. 1918), deals with broad philosophical and

cultural themes.

Fernán Caballero

Fernán Caballero, pseudonym of CECILIA FRANCISCA JOSEFA DE

ARROM (1796-1877), Spanish novelist, born in Morges,

Switzerland, and educated in Germany. She moved to Spain about

1813 and spent the rest of her life in the Andalucía region, which

was the setting for her works. In The Sea Gull (1849; trans. 1867), a

sentimental book that is often regarded as the first modern Spanish

novel, she introduced costumbrismo, the 19th-century Spanish and

Latin American literary movement that emphasized regional color.

She also compiled several volumes of folktales.

José de Cadalso y Vázquez

José de Cadalso y Vázquez (1741-1782), Spanish author and soldier, well known for his

poetry, dramatic works, and essays. Cadalso was born in Cádiz, Spain, and received his

education at a Jesuit school in Paris, France. During his youth he traveled extensively in

western Europe and became familiar with French and English literature, which later

influenced his work.

After returning to Spain, Cadalso joined the army and ultimately rose to the rank of

colonel. While stationed in Madrid, he fell in love with the actress María Ibañez, whose

sudden death left a lasting effect on his work. Cadalso was then transferred to Salamanca,

where he became a member of the Salamancan school of poets. There, he influenced one

of Spain’s most notable poets of the time, Juan Meléndez Valdés. After Spain declared

war against Great Britain in 1778, Cadalso joined the siege of Gibraltar. He was killed in

action there in 1782.

In some of his work, Cadalso may be classed with the precursors of romanticism. Noches

lúgubres (Melancholy Nights), a collection of prose dialogues that dramatized the death

of Cadalso’s beloved and his attempts to unearth her body, shows the influence of

English poet Edward Young's masterpiece The Complaint, or Night Thoughts on Life,

Death, and Immortality (1742-45). Cadalso's dependence on French classicism is shown

in his plays, the most notable of which is Don Sancho García, conde de Castilla (1771), a

historical drama, which suggests the work of the 19th-century romantic dramatist José

Zorrilla y Moral. Cadalso's poem Ocios de mi juventud (Diversions of My Youth, 1773)

has some inspiring moments and in form shows the influence of Francisco Gomez de

Quevedo y Villegas, a Spanish poet known for his satire. In prose Cadalso frequently

employed satire, such as in Los Eruditos á la violeta (The Learned on the Violet, 1772).

Of all his works, however, Cartas Marruecas (Moroccan Letters, 1793), published after

his death, is the most important. This series of fictitious letters—although modeled on

Lettres persanes (1721, translated as Persian Letters, 1961), a satire of French politics

written by Charles Louis de Secondat Montesquieu—is a highly original handling of the

problem of Spain's decline. In this work Cadalso shows himself to be an essayist of

unusual ability and one of the most important Spanish prose writers of the 18th century.

Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Henao

Pedro Calderón de la Barca y Henao (1600-81), Spanish dramatist and poet, the last

prominent figure of the golden age of Spanish literature.

Calderón was born in Madrid, on January 7, 1600, and educated at the Jesuit college in

Madrid and at the University of Salamanca. At the age of 23 he became a playwright and

competed successfully in a poetry contest held in honor of St. Isidore, the patron saint of

Madrid. His reputation as a playwright grew rapidly, and upon the death of the Spanish

dramatist Lope de Vega in 1635, Calderón was recognized as the foremost dramatist of

the period. In 1636 his brother José edited a volume of his plays that contained Life Is a

Dream (1635; trans. 1925), generally regarded as his masterpiece and as one of the

greatest of European dramas. The drama is outstanding for its high moral concepts and

philosophic symbolism. The thesis expressed by the title is convincingly unfolded in

religious terms.

In 1636 King Philip IV, who had commissioned Calderón to write a series of plays for

the royal theater, made him a knight of the Order of Santiago. He joined (1640) in a

military campaign to suppress the Catalan revolt against the Crown. During the following

decade of his life, it is known only that he was ordained in 1651.

Calderón took up residence as a prebendary of Toledo Cathedral in 1653 and was

appointed honorary chaplain to the king in 1666. Subsequently, he devoted himself

chiefly to writing autos sacramentales, allegorical plays that emphasized the moral

aspects of life and dramatized in an original way the mystery of the Holy Eucharist. He

died in Madrid on May 25, 1681.

Calderón is considered one of the greatest of Spanish dramatists, equally distinguished

for his religious and his secular plays. He gave artistic form to the traditional autos

sacramentales and became the acknowledged master of this type of religious drama. In

these plays Calderón vividly dramatized abstract concepts of Roman Catholic theology

through personification, thus making them real to his audience. Two of his plays in this

genre, El gran teatro del mundo (The Great Theater of the World, 1649) and La cena de

Baltasar (Belshazzar's Feast, c. 1634), are still performed in Spain. The chief themes of

Calderón's secular plays are devotion to the church and exaltation of the Castilian code of

honor requiring husband, father, or brother to punish the transgressions of an unfaithful

woman. The ways in which he treats that code are the basis for the designation

“Calderonian,” which in Europe is used to describe dramatic conflicts of honor arising

from a wife's infidelity or the vaguest suspicion of it. Among the 140 plays and sketches

Calderón wrote for the secular stage are dramas based on historical and legendary

material, such as The Mayor of Zalamea (1642; trans. 1906) and La hija del aire (The

Daughter of the Air, 1653); dramas of intrigue, such as La dama duende (The Phantom

Lady, 1629) and Casa con dos puertas (House with Two Doors, 1629); dramas of

jealousy and male honor, such as El médico de su honra (The Doctor of His Own Honor,

c. 1629); the philosophical plays El magico prodigioso (The Prodigious Magician, 1637)

and Life Is a Dream; and mythological dramas, including La estatua de Prometeo (The

Statue of Prometheus, 1669).

Ramón de Campoamor y Campoosorio

Ramón de Campoamor y Campoosorio (1817-1901), Spanish

poet and philosopher, born in Navia. Campoamor was one of

the most popular poets of his day. His short, philosophical

verse epigrams, called doloras, were usually sentimental and

humorous and were based on an unsophisticated philosophy

of life. Campoamor's poetry is typified by Doloras (1846),

Pequeños poemas (Little Epics, 1872-94), and Humoradas

(Humorous Sayings, 1886-88).

Rosalía de Castro

Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885), Spanish poet, born in Santiago de

Compostela. She revived the language of her native Galicia (in

northwestern Spain), introducing new poetical meters. Cantares

gallegos (Galician Songs, 1863), depicting the life and recalling the

lore of the area, has a lyrical folk song quality. A later collection of

verse, Follas novas (1880), is much more personal, concerned with

loneliness and fear of death, and the anguish of suppressed desires.

De Castro also wrote in Castilian, using it in the somber Beside the

River Sar (1884; trans. 1937). Primarily a poet, she produced several

novels, one of the best known of which is La hija del mar (The

Daughter of the Sea, 1859).

Guillén de Castro y Bellvís

Guillén de Castro y Bellvís (1569-1631), Spanish dramatist, born in

Valencia of a distinguished family. He enjoyed the friendship of

many celebrated and powerful personages and was a captain in the

military forces of Valencia. Like his friend the renowned Spanish

dramatist Lope de Vega, Castro was a well-known playwright of the

Golden Age of Spanish literature. Castro's most celebrated play is

The Youthful Deeds of the Cid (1618; trans. 1969), from which

French dramatist Pierre Corneille derived his masterpiece Le Cid.

Most of the approximately 50 dramas written by Castro deal with

the legendary deeds of El Cid.

Camilo José Cela

Camilo José Cela (1916-2002), Spanish writer and Nobel laureate, who wrote

fiction, poetry, and travel accounts. Born in El Padrón, Cela attended the

University of Madrid and also served in the army of General Francisco

Franco during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939). Cela’s career and literary

interests were deeply affected by his early acceptance and later rejection of

Franco's dictatorial rule. His style of brutal realism, known as tremendismo,

was apparent in his first novel, La Familia de Pascual Duarte (1942;

translated as The Family of Pascual Duarte, 1946). Other novels include La

Colmena (1951; The Hive, 1953), depicting life in a cheap Madrid cafe; the

bizarre Mrs. Caldwell habla con su hijo (1953; Mrs. Caldwell Speaks to Her

Son, 1968); and Mazurca para dos muertos (1983; Mazurka for Two Dead

Men, 1992), a story about revenge that is set during the Spanish Civil War.

According to an obituary, Cela described his themes as “love, life, death,

sickness, misery, the same as everywhere else.”

In 1956 Cela founded the influential Spanish literary magazine Papeles de

Son Armadáns and served thereafter as its editor. He received the Nobel Prize

for literature in 1989. The Nobel Committee cited Cela “for rich and

intensive prose, which with restrained compassion forms a challenging vision

of man’s vulnerability.”

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), Spanish writer, considered by many to be

the greatest Spanish author, whose novel Don Quixote (Part I, 1605; Part II, 1615) is

regarded as one of the masterpieces of world literature. Because of his eloquent style and

remarkable insight, Cervantes has achieved acclaim comparable to that given to such

literary greats as Greek poet Homer, Italian poet Dante Alighieri, and English playwright

William Shakespeare.

Don Quixote, Cervantes's most important work, describes the adventures of an idealistic

Spanish nobleman who, as a result of reading many tales of chivalry, comes to believe

that he is a knight who must combat the world's injustices. He travels with his squire,

Sancho Panza, an uneducated but practical peasant. Don Quixote's mount is an old,

bedraggled horse named Rocinante. Don Quixote travels in search of adventure,

dedicating his actions of valor to a simple country girl whom he calls Dulcinea, seeing

her as his lady. He sets himself the task of defending orphans, protecting maidens and

widows, befriending the helpless, and serving the causes of truth and beauty. His

imagination often runs away with him, so that he sees windmills as giants, flocks of

sheep as enemy armies, and country inns as castles. Don Quixote's romantic view of the

world, however, is often balanced by Sancho Panza's more realistic outlook.

Don Quixote was originally intended as a satire on medieval tales of chivalry. The

completed work, however, presents a rich picture of Spanish life and contains many

philosophical insights. Don Quixote's quest has been seen as an allegory of the eternal

human quest for goodness and truth in the face of insurmountable obstacles. His idealism

seems to be madness in a world that sometimes views heroism and love as forms of

insanity, and this has led many readers to consider Don Quixote a tragedy despite its

satirical style and many comical episodes.

Don Quixote has had a tremendous influence on the development of prose fiction. It has

been translated into all modern languages and has appeared in several hundred editions.

Juan de la Cueva de Garoza

Juan de la Cueva de Garoza (1550?-1610), Spanish dramatist

and poet, born in Seville (Seville). He is best remembered for

The Poetic Exemplar (1606), an exposition in rhyme of his

theories on the art of composing dramas, and for the comedy

The Scoundrel (1581). These theories exercised a profound

influence on Spanish drama, notably on the work of Lope de

Vega. Cueva was the innovator, in Spain, of the historical

drama, of new metrical forms, and of stage adaptations of

romantic ballads.

Salvador Dalí

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989), Spanish painter, writer, filmmaker, and designer, and one of

the leading figures in the surrealist movement (see Surrealism). His enormous talent for

self-publicity made him an international celebrity.

In 1929 Dalí moved to Paris and became officially a surrealist. That year he made the

first surrealist film, Un chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog), in collaboration with

director Luis Buñuel. The film shocked audiences with such images as a razor slicing an

eyeball. Also in 1929 Dalí had a one-man show in Paris, from which every work was

sold. The preface to the exhibition catalogue was written by André Breton, the founder of

surrealism, and it marked Dalí’s formal membership in the group.

During the 1930s Dalí painted the majority of the works for which he is now most

famous. These include some of the most celebrated surrealist images, such as the limp

watches in The Persistence of Memory (1931, Museum of Modern Art, New York City).

In contrast to the usual surrealist preoccupation with the phenomenon of unconscious

thought, Dalí insisted on a more consciously objective presentation of the experience of

paranoid obsession. He depicted with great precision familiar objects in illogical settings

and combinations, describing his paintings as “handmade dream photographs” and his

technique as the “paranoiac-critical method.” Many of his paintings make use of repeated

imagery—the multiple watches of The Persistence of Memory, for example—and of

shapes that metamorphose, or turn into other objects, and are therefore open to multiple

interpretations.

Like many of the surrealists, Dalí quarreled with Breton, and in 1939 he was officially

expelled from the movement. By this time he was in any case moving away from

surrealism to a more naturalistic style, influenced by his admiration for Renaissance art,

which he saw on visits to Italy. In 1940 Dalí left war-torn Europe and moved to the

United States, where he remained until 1948. In addition to paintings, he created sets and

costumes for several ballets, made handcrafted jewelry, and produced a quantity of

commercial illustrations that brought him financial success. He even contributed a dream

sequence to the movie Spellbound (1945), directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

José Echegaray y Eizaguirre

José Echegaray y Eizaguirre (1832-1916), Spanish playwright

and statesman, born in Madrid. He was a professor of

mathematics and physics at the Madrid engineering school from

1854 to 1868. From 1868 to 1874 he served in several Spanish

cabinets as minister of commerce, education, and finance; he

served as finance minister again in 1905. He first began writing

plays in 1874 and wrote more than 60 dramas in prose and

verse, most of them dealing with romantic melancholy. In 1904

Echegaray shared the Nobel Prize in literature with Frédéric

Mistral. Plays by Echegaray include Madman or Saint (1876;

trans. 1912), The World and His Wife (1881; U.S. production,

1908), and Mariana (1892).

Juan del Encina

Juan del Encina (1469?-1529?), Spanish dramatist, poet, and composer,

known as the father of Spanish drama. He was born near Salamanca and

educated at the University of Salamanca. He was a member of the

household of the duke of Alba, musical director for Pope Leo X at

Rome, and after his ordination as a priest in 1519, prior at León. He

wrote 14 plays, 8 of which are églogas (“eclogues”) or pastoral plays

that include music and dance. His églogas were the first secular plays

written in Spain. He was considered a master of the villancico (a poetic

form typically having a three- or four-voice musical setting). Much of

his poetry and music is collected in the monumental Cancionero de

palacio (Palace Songbook, c. 1500) of the Spanish monarchs Ferdinand

and Isabella.

Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga

Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-1594), Spanish poet and soldier,

born in Madrid. In 1555 he sailed to South America, where he

fought in the campaign against the Araucanian people of Chile. His

observation of the heroism and indomitable spirit of both the Native

Americans and the Spanish soldiers moved him to write his poem

La Araucana (1569-1589; translated 1945) in which he described

his country’s conquest of Chile. In 1562 he returned to Spain, where

in 1564 he was made Duke of Lernia.

Vicente Martínez de Espinel

Vicente Martínez de Espinel (1551?-1624), Spanish poet, novelist,

and musician, born in Ronda, Andalucía, and educated at the

University of Salamanca. He served as a soldier in Italy and

Flanders, took holy orders in 1587, became chaplain of Ronda in

1591, and later was choirmaster at Plasencia. He revived the verse

form known as décima (a stanza of ten octosyllabic lines), which is

now called espinela after him; he is also credited by some with

introducing the fifth string on the guitar. His most important work is

the semiautobiographical picaresque novel Relaciones de la vida del

Escudero Marcos de Obregón (History of the Life of the Squire

Marcos of Obregón, 1618). It was used as a source by the French

novelist Alain René Lesage for his Gil Blas (1747).

José de Espronceda y Delgado

José de Espronceda y Delgado (1808-42), Spanish poet and

revolutionist, born in Almendralejo. At the age of 14 he was

already known for his ability as a poet; at 15 he was

imprisoned for expressing democratic ideas. On his release

five years later he went into exile in Portugal and England,

and he participated in the July Revolution in France in 1830.

Several years of revolutionary activity followed, and in 1842,

shortly before his death, he was elected deputy from

Almería. Strongly influenced by the English poet Lord

Byron, Espronceda is regarded as the leading figure of

romanticism in Spanish literature. Chief among his poetic

works is El estudiante de Salamanca (The Student of

Salamanca, 1841).

Federico García Lorca Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), Spanish writer, the most popular poet of the Spanish-

speaking world and one of the most powerful dramatists in the modern theater. García Lorca was

assassinated in August 1936 by Francisco Franco’s Nationalists during the Spanish Civil War.

García Lorca was born on June 5, 1898, in Fuente Vaqueros, the son of a well-to-do Andalucían

family. He studied law at the University of Granada and literature at the University of Madrid.

During his youth he wrote poetry and developed an interest in music, a field in which he received

encouragement from Spanish composer Manuel de Falla. De Falla introduced García Lorca to

the cante jondo, or deep song, an ancient type of Andalucían Romani (Gypsy) song. The cante

jondo influenced García Lorca’s poetry considerably, and in 1922 he organized the first festival

devoted to it.

From 1919 to 1934 García Lorca lived principally in Madrid, where he organized theatrical

performances and gave readings of his poems, which were first collected in Libro de poemas

(Book of Poems, 1921). The poems in this book show the influence of two leaders of 20th-

century Spanish poetry, Rubén Darío and Juan Ramón Jiménez, but even here two of García

Lorca’s basic and distinctive characteristics are evident: the musical quality of his verse and its

popular inspiration. While he took his inspiration from the themes of popular songs, he gave

them a new poetic value both in subject matter and in form.

After the publication of Primer romancero gitano (First Book of Gypsy Ballads, 1928), on

Andalucían Romani (Gypsy) themes, García Lorca became renowned among both the

intelligentsia and the common people of Spain. In both the Primer romancero gitano and El

poema del cante jondo (1931), there is a vision of humankind dominated by the fatal destiny of

death and of passion. The poet alludes to objects and scenes common to the daily life of

Andalucía, describes the elements of nature, and at the same time transforms all this into a

fantastic and unreal world in which the forces of nature take charge of the human tragedy they

witness and become active agents in the drama.

García Lorca lived in New York City in 1929 and 1930, writing the poems published

posthumously in Poeta en Nueva York (1940; Poet in New York and Other Poems, 1940).

However popular his poems, it was his dramatic works that brought him international fame. His

first successful play, the historical drama Mariana Pineda, had appeared in 1927. In 1931, after

returning to Spain from New York, he became codirector of a traveling theater company for the

Spanish government; the group put on performances of classical Spanish plays throughout Spain.

His tragedy of rural life, Bodas de sangre (1933; Blood Wedding, 1939), a true story of jealousy

and death among the peasants of Andalucía written in vivid symbolic language, marked a new

departure in the modern poetic theater. Bodas de sangre enjoyed immediate success and was

soon translated into English, French, and other languages. It was followed by the great tragedies

Yerma (1935; trans. 1941) and La casa de Bernarda Alba (The House of Bernard Alba, 1936);

and the tragic comedy Doña Rosita la soltera (Doña Rosita the Spinster, 1935).

García Lorca’s other works include the comedy La zapatera prodigiosa (1930; The Shoemaker’s

Prodigious Wife, 1941) and Llanto per Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (1935; Lament for the Death of a

Bullfighter and Other Poems, 1937). The latter was written upon the death of a famous

bullfighter who was his personal friend.

Luis de Góngora y Argote

Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627), Spanish lyric poet and

dramatist, born in Córdoba of a distinguished family, and educated at the

University of Salamanca. He took orders, obtained a minor ecclesiastical

post, and eventually became chaplain to Philip III. His innovative style

of exaggerated elegance, artificiality, and florid use of figures of speech

came to be known as Gongorism or culteranismo, the equivalent of

euphuism in English Renaissance poetry. The style was not viewed with

disfavor until his imitators, lacking his gifts, abused it.

Among his writings in this baroque style are the great long poems of his

maturity, Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (Fable of Polyphemus and

Galatea, 1627) and his unfinished masterpiece, Soledades (1627; trans.

the Solitudes of Don Luis de Góngora, 1931). with heavy Latinate

vocabulary, this pastoral poem contrasts the innocent beauty of natural

scenery with human life.

After a long period of neglect, Góngora enjoyed a renewed influence

and popularity in Spain during the first half of the 20th century.

Juan Goytisolo Juan Goytisolo, born in 1931, Spanish novelist, whose books discuss existential

problems and protest against a certain emptiness in contemporary Spanish society.

Goytisolo is a leading figure among those who stimulated a remarkable resurgence

in the Spanish novel in the 1950s. Like the others in the movement, he slighted the

formalities and fine points of style for the sake of emphasizing Spain's urgent

social problems.

Goytisolo was born in Barcelona, Spain, to a literary family of Spanish and French

heritage. His older brother José Agustín was a poet, and his younger brother Luis

was a novelist and short-story writer. Goytisolo studied law at the universities of

Barcelona and Madrid, Spain. He also spent considerable time in Paris, France,

where, for most of the time after the early 1950s, he lived in self-imposed exile

from Spain.

Goytisolo has aspired to give the Spanish novel universal appeal by increasing its

ties to the Hispanic people, and by humanizing its content. Rejecting certain

concepts of Spanish writer and philosopher José Ortega Y Gasset as elitist,

dehumanized literature that appeals only to select minorities, Goytisolo employs a

sharp objective realism in portraying the life of the contemporary Spaniard. One of

the main influences on Goytisolo’s work was the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).

His first novel, Juegos de manos (1954; The Young Assassins, 1959), is concerned

with the youthful victims of the war. A terrifying look at what might be called the

Spanish lost generation, it is the story of a group of young rebels who react

cynically and savagely against social and spiritual values that they no longer

consider relevant. Goytisolo’s second novel, Duelo en el paraíso (1955; Children

of Chaos, 1959), shows a continuing preoccupation with Spain's distraught,

confused, and alienated adolescents. In other novels, such as La isla (The Island,

1961), Goytisolo turns his attention from the adolescent to the adult casualties of

the civil war and examines the empty and frivolous lives in the spiritual void of

postwar Spain. In Señas de identidad (1966; Marks of Identity, 1969), Goytisolo

integrates Spanish history with individual psychological portraits of intellectual

figures. Don Julian (1970; Count Julian, 1974), employs myth, complex shifts in

time, and interior monologue to portray a Spanish exile who is sharply critical of

his homeland. The autobiographical Coto Vedado (1985) and the apocalyptic

Paisajes despuès de la batalla (1982; Landscapes After the Battle, 1987), shed

light on the concerns of his other novels.

Goytisolo has also published travel books, short stories, and theoretical essays on

the novel. His writings have been widely translated, some have been honored with

literary awards, and some have been censored or banned in Spain.

Antonio de Guevara

Antonio de Guevara (1480?-1545), Spanish writer, born in

Treceño, Santander Province. He became a Franciscan monk

and in 1518 was made court preacher and historiographer by

Charles V of Spain. In 1523 he was appointed inquisitor, in

1527 bishop of Guadix, and in 1537 bishop of Mondoñedo.

Most of his writings were didactic and artificial. His Reloj de

príncipes o libro aureo del emperador Marco Aurelio (1529;

Dial of Princes, 1557) purported to be a biography of the Roman

emperor Marcus Aurelius, based on historical documents;

actually the work was an idealized characterization of a perfect

prince. Guevara's affected style was developed by the English

author John Lyly into what is known as “euphuism.”

Abraham Ibn Ezra

Abraham Ibn Ezra (1092-1167), Spanish Jewish scholar, poet,

and author, born in Tudela, Spain. He left his native country

shortly before 1140 to teach and travel and spent more than 25

years in northern Africa, England (where he arrived in 1158),

France, and Italy.

Ibn Ezra is best known for his biblical commentaries, especially

those on the Pentateuch, which are often included in Hebrew

editions of the Old Testament. In these commentaries he

attempted to arrive at the basic meaning of the text by the use of

philological principles; his philosophical interpretations reveal a

Neoplatonic viewpoint. Ibn Ezra's other writings dealt with such

subjects as mathematics, astronomy, medicine, philosophy, and

astrology. In addition he wrote a body of secular verse in

Hebrew. He is thought to have been the inspiration for the

English poet Robert Browning's poem “Rabbi ben Ezra” (1864).

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958), Spanish poet and winner of the 1956

Nobel Prize in literature. He was born in Moguer, Huelva Province, and

educated at the University of Seville. Jiménez was profoundly

influenced by Rubén Darío, the leader of the modernist movement in

Spanish poetry, whom he knew in Madrid, and by the early work of the

symbolists, encountered on early trips to France. Exiled following the

outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Jiménez taught literature in the

United States, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. He was awarded the Nobel Prize

in literature in 1956.

Jiménez's poetry is distinguished for its technical innovations, exquisite

delicacy of feeling, subtle nuances of rhythm and tone, and soft lyrical

quality. His poems are suffused with melancholy, a gentle brooding over

solitude and suffering, and a platonic sense of beauty. Among his works

are Amas de violeta (Violet Souls, 1900?), Balades de primavera

(Ballads of Spring, 1910), Diario de un poeta recien casado (Diary of a

Newly Married Poet, 1917), and Sonetos espirituales (Spiritual Sonnets,

1917). Jiménez's Platero and I (1917; translated 1956) is a masterpiece;

the delicate fusion of fantasy and realism in these prose poems about a

man and his donkey has endeared them to both adults and children.

Saint John of The Cross

Saint John of The Cross (1542-1591), Spanish mystic and poet. John was born

June 24, 1542, in Fontiveros, Spain, and originally named Juan de Yepes y

Álvarez. He became a Carmelite monk in 1563 and was ordained as a priest in

1567. In organizing a new branch of the Carmelite order, his compatriot St. Teresa

of Ávila called on John for assistance. In 1568 he opened the first monastery of the

Discalced Carmelites, who emphasized a life of contemplation and austerity. John's

attempts at monastic reform led to his imprisonment in 1576 and 1577; it was in

prison that he began to compose some of his finest work. The themes of his poetry

concentrate on the reconciliation of human beings with God through a series of

mystical steps that begin with self-communion and renunciation of the distractions

of the world. The unique poetical achievement of St. John of the Cross lies in his

combining the nonrational longings of mysticism with the theological and

philosophical precepts established by St. Thomas Aquinas. John's finest works, all

of which have been translated into English, include the moving poems “Cántico

espiritual” (Spiritual Canticle) and “Llama de amor viva” (Living Flame of Love).

In his best-known lyric, “Noche obscura del alma” (Dark Night of the Soul), he

described the soul's progress in seeking and finally attaining union with God by a

course parallel to Christ's crucifixion and glory. John, who spent his final years in

solitude and died December 14, 1591, in Ubeda, was canonized in 1726.

Judah Ha-Levi

Judah Ha-Levi (circa 1075-c. 1141), Jewish poet, philosopher, and physician,

who wrote what is generally acclaimed the greatest Jewish poetry of the

Middle Ages. Judah (Hebrew, Yehuda ben Shemuel ha-Levi) was born in

Tudela, in northern Spain, and lived in Córdoba and other southern Spanish

cities under Moorish rule before settling in Toledo. He was schooled in the

Hebrew Bible, rabbinic literature, Arab poetry, Greek philosophy, and

medicine. While earning a prosperous living as a physician, he wrote the

Diwan, a collection in Hebrew of secular poems celebrating friendship, love,

and nature, and of religious poems, later used in Jewish liturgy. They express

his yearning for God and for Zion and his hope for the messianic redemption

of his suffering people. He also produced the Sefer ha-Kuzari (Book of the

Khazar), a dialogue in Arabic that explains Judaism to a convert.

Late in life Judah left his family and friends in Spain to realize a long-

cherished dream of visiting Palestine. En route, he spent time in Alexandria

and Cairo. No record of the remainder of his journey exists, but, according to

legend, he was ridden down by an Arab horseman before the gates of

Jerusalem.

Mariano José de Larra

Mariano José de Larra (1809-1837), Spanish essayist, noted for his criticisms of

contemporary Spanish life and culture. A significant figure in the history of ideas in

Spain, Larra is considered one of the most characteristic predecessors of the so-called

Generation of 1898 that later brought about a revolution in Spanish literary techniques

and style (see Spanish Literature: The Generation of 1898).

Larra was born in Madrid during the French occupation of Spain that had begun in 1808,

when Emperor Napoleon I placed his older brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the nation’s

throne. Toward the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815), Larra’s father became a

doctor in Joseph's army, and public resentment over this apparent collaboration with the

occupying forces eventually forced the elder Larra to leave Spain with his family.

Mariano Larra studied in Bordeaux, France, but after the amnesty of 1818 his family

brought him back to Madrid. He continued his studies at a Jesuit school in Madrid, and at

the universities of Valencia and Valladolid. Subsequently he began his career as a

journalist, his extremely popular articles bringing him an unusually good income. His

marriage of 1829 was unhappy, and an illicit love affair led to his eventual suicide in

Madrid.

The manner of Larra's life and death was almost a symbol of romanticism, with all of its

characteristic passion and upheaval, and he often gravitated toward these themes in his

writing. The half-mythical, half-historical figure of the medieval Galician poet Macías,

who died as the consequence of an adulterous passion, inspired Larra's tragedy Macías

(1834) and the novel El Doncel de Don Enrique el doliente (The Mourner Don Enrique’s

Page, 1834). Both are interesting for their historical content and insofar as they represent

a Spanish interpretation of the romantic theme of tragic love. Larra is best known,

however, for the extraordinary descriptions of Spanish life and customs in his Artículos

de costumbres (Articles on Manners, 1832-1837). While his criticism of his country in

these works rings a harsh, often pessimistic note, it nevertheless emerges from a very

deep love for Spain.

Luis Ponce de León

Luis Ponce de León (1527?-91), Spanish poet and mystic. Born in Belmonte,

he was a monk and later vicar-general and provincial of the Augustinian

order. As a teacher of theology and philosophy at the University of

Salamanca, León developed a reputation as an outstanding Hebraic scholar.

He translated books of the Old Testament as well as classical Greek and

Roman texts and works by contemporary Italian writers. León was

imprisoned for four years by the Inquisition as a result of theological disputes

with leaders of the Dominican order of monks. Only 24 of León's lyric poems

have survived; they are marked by the author's humanism and scholarly

background in the classics and in biblical study. León's prose works include

The Names of Christ(1583; trans. 1926) and La perfecta casada (The Perfect

Wife, 1583).

Antonio Machado y Ruíz

Antonio Machado y Ruíz (1875-1939), Spanish poet and member of

the literary movement known as the Generation of 1898 (see

Spanish Literature). He wrote austere and dramatic verse that

reflects the landscape of Castile. Machado was forced to flee Spain

during the civil war because of his Republican loyalties; he died in

France after crossing the Pyrenees on foot. With his brother Manuel

Machado y Ruíz, he wrote plays and made translations of the French

playwright Edmond Rostand's L'aiglon and the French writer Victor

Hugo's Hernani. Antonio Machado's Poesías completas appeared in

1917, but his reputation as a poet has been achieved, for the most

part, posthumously.

Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo

Salvador de Madariaga y Rojo (1886-1978), Spanish essayist,

historian, and diplomat. Madariaga represented Spain at the League

of Nations and served as his country's ambassador to the U.S. until

1936. During the Spanish Civil War he remained in England in

exile, becoming in the 1960s a leading opponent of the Spanish

dictator Francisco Franco. As a historian, Madariaga wrote several

volumes about Spain and its colonial empire. His literary criticism

ranges from a series of essays on modern literature to Don Quixote:

a Psychological Study (1926; trans. by Madariaga in 1934), a

lengthy analysis of the masterpiece by the Spanish writer Miguel de

Cervantes Saavedra. Political and philosophical writings by

Madariaga address such topics as European militarism and precepts

of democracy.

Juan Meléndez Valdés

Juan Meléndez Valdés (1754-1817), Spanish poet and politician.

He was trained as a lawyer, but throughout his career Meléndez

Valdés mixed literary endeavors with judicial and political

pursuits, becoming his country's foremost neoclassic poet. He

eventually served as director of public instruction in French-

dominated Spain after 1808 and was forced into exile in France

after Napoleon's defeat. Meléndez Valdés's graceful and refined

poems employ neoclassic conventions, such as the pastoral, and

attitudes, such as sentimentalism. Nevertheless, he is regarded as

a precursor of romanticism because of his empathy with and

descriptions of nature.

Tirso de Molina

Tirso de Molina, pseudonym of GABRIEL TÉLLEZ (1571?-1648), Spanish

dramatist of the Golden Age. He was born in Madrid and educated at the

University of Alcalá. He joined the Mercedarian order in 1601 and

subsequently became a respected theologian and historian of his order

and prior of a monastery in Soria. In part inspired by his friend the

Spanish dramatist Lope de Vega, Tirso wrote several hundred plays, 80

of which were published. He imitated in particular Lope's comedia, a

blend of tragedy and comedy. Perhaps his best-known work is the

comedia The Trickster of Seville and His Guest of Stone (1630; trans.

1959) in which the legendary hero Don Juan appears formally as a

literary character for the first time. Other plays include Condenado por

desconfiado (Condemned for Being Untrusting); the historical dramas

Antona Garcia and La prudencia en la mujer (Prudence in Woman,

1633); and the comedy Don Gil de las calzas verdes (Don Gil of the

Green Pants). Tirso's works have wit and natural speech and show

excellent psychological understanding of his characters.

José Ortega y Gasset

José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955), Spanish writer and philosopher,

noted for his humanistic criticism of modern civilization. He was born in

Madrid, and educated at the universities of Madrid and Marburg. In

1910 he was appointed professor of metaphysics at the University of

Madrid. His articles, lectures, and essays on philosophical and political

issues contributed to a Spanish intellectual renaissance in the first

decades of the 20th century and to the fall of the Spanish monarchy in

1931. He was a member from 1931 to 1933 of the Cortes (Spanish

parliament) that promulgated the republican constitution. After the

outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 he lived abroad, returning to

Spain in the late 1940s. His reflections on the problems of modern

civilization are contained in The Revolt of the Masses (1930; trans.

1932), a work that earned him an international reputation. In it he

decries the destructive influence of mass-minded, and therefore

mediocre, people, who, if not directed by the intellectually and morally

superior minority, encourage the rise of totalitarianism. His writings

include The Modern Theme (1923; trans. 1933), Invertebrate Spain

(1921; trans. 1937), The Dehumanization of Art (1925; trans. 1948), and

Some Lessons in Metaphysics (posthumously pub., 1970; trans. 1970).

Emilia Pardo Bazán de Quiroga

Emilia Pardo Bazán de Quiroga (1852-1921), Spanish novelist, poet,

and critic, born in La Coruña, Galicia. She was a professor of

literature at the University of Madrid and established (1891) a

critical review (Nuevo Teatro Crítico). Pardo Bazán was a leading

exponent of naturalism in writing, and her works paint vivid

descriptions of both the land and the people of Galicia. Her most

important works are Pascual López (1879), La madre naturaleza

(1887), Cuentos de amor (1894), Misterio (1903), and Cuentos de la

tierra (1922).

Benito Pérez Galdós

Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920), Spanish novelist and playwright, who

is considered one of the greatest authors of Spain. He was born at Las

Palmas in the Canary Islands, and educated at the University of Madrid.

He wrote five series of historical novels—46 volumes with the general

title Episodios nacionales (1873-79 and 1898-1912). They were

distinguished for their careful documentation and vivid re-creation of

Spanish history. His novels of Spanish society include Fortunata y

Jacinta (1886-87). The novels Doña Perfecta (1876; trans. 1880) and

Marianela (1878; trans. 1883) and the plays La loca de la casa (1893),

Electra (1900), and Mariucha (1903) deal with contemporary social and

religious problems. Great interest attended the discovery in 1983 of his

previously unknown novel, Rosalia (1872).

Francisco Gómez

Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645), Spanish

writer, born in Madrid, and educated at the universities of Alcalá

(now the University of Madrid) and Valladolid. He served in

diplomatic missions to Italy from 1613 to 1620 and returned to

Spain in 1623. In 1632 he was appointed secretary to King Philip

IV. From 1639 to 1643, however, he was under house arrest as the

suspected author of a political satire directed against the king. One

of the most influential literary personages of his time, Quevedo was

known as a satirist, a moralist, and a craftsman of the baroque

writing style; he created the conceptismo, an elaborate writing style

using conceits, paradoxes, and puns. His major works include the

picaresque novel The Life and Adventures of Buscon (1626;

translated 1657) and his satiric descriptions of hell, Visions (1627;

translated 1640).

Manuel José Quintana

Manuel José Quintana (1772-1857), Spanish poet and patriot.

Quintana received his training as an attorney and practiced law in

Madrid before the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars. During the

conflict he wrote numerous patriotic political tracts, and after a term

in prison, from 1814 to 1820, he entered active political life,

beginning as a tutor to the royal family, then becoming a director of

public instruction and eventually a senator. Quintana's neoclassical

poetry is extremely traditional. He used the formal ode form to

expound the virtues of patriotism and liberalism. Although he lived

during the romantic period, his verse shows little influence of that

movement. In addition to poetry, Quintana wrote biographical

sketches of illustrious Spaniards and two important volumes of

literary criticism. Although Quintana was formerly regarded as a

major Spanish poet, his reputation has waned considerably.

Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza

Juan Ruiz de Alarcón y Mendoza (circa 1581-1639), Spanish

dramatist of the Golden Age. He was born in Mexico, studied law in

Spain, and in 1626 became a member of the governing body for the

Spanish colonies. He wrote about 20 plays; but his main

contributions to Spanish literature are the so-called comedies of

ethics, plays with a moral purpose. He showed how lying and

slander bring disaster to sinners in his best-known plays Las paredes

oyen (Walls Have Ears) and La verdad sospechosa (The Suspicious

Truth). The latter play inspired Le menteur (The Liar) by the French

dramatist Pierre Corneille.

Iñigo López de Mendoza Santillana

Iñigo López de Mendoza Santillana (1398-1458), Spanish poet

and political figure, who assisted in the reconquest of Spain

from the Moors. Santillana wrote sonnets and other lyric poems

but is known for his serranillas, or pastoral songs. His other

writing includes didactic poems, allegories, and proverbs. the

preface, or proemio, to his collected works is the first discussion

in Spanish of the art of literary criticism. Santillana amassed a

famous library, and it was under his influence that important

Greek and Latin authors, such as Homer, Virgil, and Seneca,

were translated into Spanish.

Manuel Tamayo y Baus

Manuel Tamayo y Baus (1829-98), Spanish dramatist, considered

one of the foremost of 19th-century Spain. Tamayo was born in

Madrid of a family of distinguished actors. His early life was spent

traveling with the theatrical company to which his parents belonged.

In 1858 he was elected to the Royal Spanish Academy. The author

of more than 50 plays, Tamayo ceased to write in 1870, when he

became director of the National Library and permanent secretary of

the Spanish Royal Academy. His most famous play is La locura de

amor (The Madness of Love, 1855), a study of jealousy set in 16th-

century Castile. Critics consider Tamayo's masterpiece A New

Drama (1867; trans. 1915), a prose tragedy set in 16th-century

England that effectively uses the device of a play within a play.

Saint Teresa of Ávila

Saint Teresa of Ávila (1515-82), Spanish mystic, influential author, and founder of

the religious order of Discalced, or Barefoot, Carmelites, also known as Teresa of

Jesus.

Teresa de Cepeda y Ahumada was born in Ávila on March 28, 1515. She was

educated in an Augustinian convent and, about 1535, entered the local Carmelite

Convent of the Incarnation (see Carmelites; Mysticism). In 1555, after many years

marked by serious illness and increasingly rigorous religious exercises, she

experienced a profound awakening, involving visions of Jesus Christ, hell, angels,

and demons; at times she felt sharp pains that she claimed were caused by the tip

of an angel's lance piercing her heart. Long troubled by the slack discipline into

which the Carmelites had relapsed, she determined to devote herself to the reform

of the order. Through papal intervention in her behalf, she overcame the bitter

opposition of her immediate ecclesiastical superiors and in 1562 succeeded in

founding at Ávila the Convent of St. Joseph, the first community of reformed, or

Discalced, Carmelite nuns. She enforced strict observance of the original, severe

Carmelite rules at the convent. Her reforms won the approbation of the head of the

order, and in 1567 she was authorized to establish similar religious houses for men.

Teresa organized the new branch of the old order, with the aid of St. John of the

Cross, the Spanish mystic and Doctor of the Church. Although she was harassed at

every step by powerful and hostile church officials, she helped to establish 16

foundations for women and 14 for men. Two years before her death the Discalced

Carmelites received papal recognition as an independent monastic body. Teresa

died in Alba de Tormes on October 4, 1582.

Teresa was a gifted organizer endowed with common sense, tact, intelligence,

courage, and humor, as well as a mystic of extraordinary spiritual depth. She

purified the religious life of Spain and, in a period when Protestantism gained

ground elsewhere in Europe, strengthened the forces that reformed the Roman

Catholic church from within.

Teresa's writings, all published posthumously, are valued as unique contributions

to mystical and devotional literature and as masterpieces of Spanish prose. Among

her works are a spiritual autobiography; The Way of Perfection (after 1565), advice

to her nuns; The Interior Castle (1577), an eloquent description of the

contemplative life; and The Foundations (1573-82), an account of the origins of

the Discalced Carmelites. English translations of her complete works appeared in

three volumes in 1946.

Teresa was canonized in 1622; she was proclaimed a Doctor of the Church, the

first woman to be so named, in 1970. Her feast day is October 15.

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936), Spanish philosopher and author,

regarded by many as the greatest Spanish writer of modern times. He was

born in Bilbao, and educated at the University of Madrid. He was professor

of Greek at the University of Salamanca from 1891 until 1901, when he

became rector. In 1914 he was forced to resign from his administrative post

at the university because of his attacks on the government of King Alfonso

XIII; he continued to teach Greek, however. In 1924 his attacks on the

dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera y Orbaneja caused his exile to the

Canary Islands. Later he went to France, where he lived in voluntary exile

until 1930, the end of the Primo de Rivera regime. Unamuno then returned to

his post as rector at Salamanca. He originally supported the rebellious

Spanish army and its general, Francisco Franco, but denounced them shortly

before his death.

Unamuno was a poet, novelist, playwright, and literary critic. His philosophy,

which he carefully pointed out was not systematic but rather a denial of any

system and an affirmation of “faith in faith itself,” pervades all his work.

Among his books are the novels Mist (1914; trans. 1928) and Three

Exemplary Novels and a Prologue (1920; trans. 1930) and the philosophical

works The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and in Peoples (1913; trans. 1921)

and The Agony of Christianity (1925; trans. 1928).

Ramon María del Valle-Inclán

Ramon María del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936), Spanish novelist, playwright, and

poet, whose satirical works criticized Spanish society of his time. He was born

Ramón Valle y Villanueva de Arosa, in the Galicia region of Spain. He studied law

at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia but broke off his studies in

1892 to visit Mexico, where he worked as a journalist.

Valle-Inclán was still pursuing journalism when he returned to Galicia in 1893. His

first book of short stories, Femeninas. Seis historias amorosas (Of Women. Six

Amorous Tales), was published in 1895. The following year Valle-Inclán moved to

Madrid, Spain, where he focused efforts on his literary career and adopted a

trademark Bohemian appearance—distinguished by a flowing purple cape and long

beard—to parallel his avant-garde approach to literature. At this time he began

writing his Sonatas, semiautobiographical novellas that were published between

1902 and 1905. The Sonatas are named after the four seasons and describe the

adventures of a Galician Don Juan figure. In 1904, Valle-Inclán published Flor de

santidad (Flower of Sainthood), a novel about peasants and religious pilgrims in

Galicia. La Guerra Carlista (The Carlist Wars, 1908-1909) concerns the 19th-

century dispute over the succession of Isabella II to the throne of Spain.

Valle-Inclán wrote 23 plays in a variety of styles and genres. In two of his farces,

La cabeza del dragón (1910; translated as The Dragon's Head, 1918) and La

Marquesa Rosalinda (The Marquise Rosalinda, 1912), Valle-Inclán introduced a

literary genre called esperpento, characterized by the use of stylized portrayals of

physically distorted characters to ridicule Spanish institutions.

Valle-Inclán incorporates esperpento throughout his later works, most notably in

the plays Luces de Bohemia (1920; Bohemian Nights, 1976) and Los cuernos de

don Friolera (The Cuckolding of Don Friolera, 1921). His esperpento novels

include Tirano Banderas (1926; The Tyrant, 1929)—a depiction of a grotesque

tyrant in a fictional South American country—and La corte de los milagros (The

Court of Miracles, 1927) and Viva mi dueño (Long Live My Master, 1928), two

satires of the 19th-century reign of Queen Isabella II.

In 1931, Valle-Inclán was named director of the palace museum at Aranjuez, a

historic residence of the Spanish monarchy. Two years later he was appointed to

the post of director of the Spanish Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.

Lope de Vega

Lope de Vega (1562-1635), Spanish playwright and poet, one of the most prolific

and gifted writers of the Golden Age of Spanish literature (16th and 17th

centuries). Born Lope Felix de Vega Carpio in Madrid, he was educated at the

University of Alcalá (now University of Madrid). In 1588, having been banished

from Madrid earlier that year on a charge of libel, he served in the Spanish

Armada, the fleet of ships that attempted an invasion of England. In 1614,

following the death of his second wife, Lope became a priest. He continued,

however, his ambitious literary life, eventually amassing great wealth and fame.

Lope is considered the founder of the Spanish national drama. While it has been

estimated that he wrote more than 2000 plays, including about 400 autos

sacramentales (one-act religious dramas), many consider this figure to be too

large. The texts of more than 400 of his plays survive. In his dramas Lope

combined elements of comedy and tragedy, developing a form called the comedia.

He wrote expressly to please audiences, and his works, notable for their graceful

and witty style, were extremely popular during his lifetime. His works were often

filled with intrigue, highly dramatic situations, and plot complications that were

resolved only near the end of the play, and they came to be called cloak-and-sword

dramas. These dramas, which are frequently concerned with the theme of honor,

generally portray the social life of members of the upper and middle classes, who

are often motivated by love. Many of his plays reveal his disregard for the classical

unities of time, place, and action. Lope also wrote historical dramas, melodramas,

and one-act farces.

Lope's plays include El perro del hortelano (The Dog in the Manger, 1613?), La

dama boba (The Foolish Lady, 1613), Peribañez (1610?), El mejor alcalde, el rey

(The Best Magistrate, the King, 1620?-1623?), and El caballero de Olmedo (The

Knight of Olmedo, 1615?-1626?).

José Zorrilla y Moral

José Zorrilla y Moral (1817-1893), Spanish playwright and poet, who was an

outstanding figure of the romantic movement. He was born in Valladolid and

educated at the universities of Toledo and Valladolid. A prolific writer, he

published 40 plays, largely national histories, between 1839 and 1849. He

also completed Cantos del trovador (Songs of the Troubadour, 3 volumes,

1840-1841), Spanish legends told in verse. In 1850 he moved to France and

in 1855 to Mexico. Returning to Spain in 1866, he found that, although his

plays had become extremely popular, he could not collect royalties. He was

impoverished until he was finally granted a small government pension. In

1889 he was made poet laureate of Spain.

Zorrilla's genius as a poet of this era is best exhibited in his legends and in his

epic Granada (1852). His most important dramatic works include Don Juan

Tenorio (1844; trans. 1944), which remains the most popular of all Hispanic

plays, and Traidor, incofeso y mártir (Traitor, Sinner, and Martyr, 1849).

Zorrilla's autobiography, Recuerdos del tiempo viejo (Recollections of Times

Past), appeared in 1880.