Spanish Realist literature is the literature written in Spain during the second half of the 19th century, following the Realist movement which predominated in Europe.
In the mid-19th century, the Romantic movement waned and a new literary movement arose in Europe: Realism. This new approach grew out of the 1850 French reaction to selected aspects of Romanticism, mainly costumbrismo. As artistic style rebelled against "art for art's sake" and literary imagination grew tired of fanciful and colorful depictions, artists and authors began to focus more objectively on people, actions, and society. The main precursor was Honoré de Balzac (1799–1850), who, with works like The Human Comedy, imposed a moral and social objective on the novel. This purpose, which became the almost exclusive concern of the writers of the time, soon led to Naturalism.
The term realist was used for the first time in 1850, referring to painting, but was later adopted by literature, in which it was applied mainly to the novel. One of the reasons for the popular success of novels was their publication in newspapers in installments, conceived as a tactic to encourage the public to buy the newspaper daily. The attitude of the realistic writer is analytical and critical, and usually remains objective. The important novels of the 19th century focused on social character, leading the writers to consider themselves to be "historians of the present".
Historical context During the 19th century, Spain experienced one of the most tumultuous periods of its history. The century opened with the War of Independence against France and ended with the Spanish–American War and the "Disaster of '98"—the loss of Cuba and Puerto Rico in America and the Philippines in Asia. The Borbón (Bourbon) dynasty, after the reigns of Fernando VII (1814–1833) and Isabel II (1833–1868), was overthrown in the revolution of 1868, the Glorious Revolution. The rule of Serrano (1869–1870) and the brief reign of Amadeo de Saboya (1871–1873) followed. Later, the short era of the First Republic (1873–1874) began, followed by the Restoration of the Borbón dynasty under Alfonso XII (1874–1885), son of Isabel II, after the uprising of Martínez Campos. After the death of Alfonso XII, his second wife, María Cristina assumed the regency until 1902, the year in which Alfonso's son Alfonso XIII began to reign.
Naturalism
This literary movement began in France and its initiator was Émile Zola (1840–1902). This style descends from the positivist philosophy of Auguste Comte (1798–1857), the methods of the physiologist Claude Bernard (1813–1878), and many distinctive achievements of the modern spirit: democracy, experimental methods (Claude Bernard), and theories of heredity (Charles Darwin). Zola, a socialist, looks for the cause of social problems in society, and of the individual's problems in biological heredity. Thus, Naturalism adopts a materialist and determinist concept of people as not morally responsible for their actions and the situations in which they are found, because these are determined by the environment and heredity. While the realist writer is conscious of what occurs, the naturalist investigates its cause and effect. Alcoholics, the insane, and psychopaths are prevalent in Zola's works, predicated on his belief that the environment was the source of many of society's ills.
Zola introduced the naturalistic theory in The Experimental Novel (1880). In this essay on literary criticism, he maintains that the novelist is an observer and an experimenter. From the point of view of the observer, the writer offers the facts as he has seen them, and establishes the environment which the characters inhabit and where the facts are developed. From the point of view of the experimenter, the novelist "institutes the experience," moving the characters through a particular story to show that the succession of events will occur in conformity with the demands of determinism.
In Spain, the contradictions between naturalistic theories and religious beliefs reduced Naturalism's manifestation. Some critics even wondered whether Naturalism in the strictest sense ever occurred in Spain. Emilia Pardo Bazán, commonly considered to be naturalist, addresses Naturalism's reception in Spain in her 1883 article La cuestión palpitante (The Burning Question). Additionally, passages of texts by authors such as Benito Pérez Galdós have been considered naturalistic, but that has been explicitly rejected by the majority of literary critics. The line between Spanish Naturalism and Realism is difficult to distinguish due to the infrequent adoption of explicit theories among Spanish artists.
Characteristics of Realism
In Spain, the best literary fruit of the second half of the 19th century was the novel, a consequence of the international blossoming of the genre as an expression of the middle class's rising political power, obtained through successive revolutions (1789, 1820, 1830, 1848). The values and inquietudes of the middle-class are reflected in the mirror of Realist literature: individualism, materialism, desire for social ascent, and esteem of daily and immutable things.
The fundamental themes of literary Realism are the contrast between traditional farming values and modern urban values, the exodus from the field to the city and inherent social and moral contrasts, the fight for social ascent and moral and economic success, women's dissatisfaction with restrictions against their working outside of the home, and middle-class independence and individualism. The themes of adultery and folletinesque and sentimental fantasy appear, as ways to escape the relentless Realism of the era. There are two main tendencies in Realism: the progressive and the conservative.
The Realist novel of this period is characterized by: Objective vision of reality through direct observation of customs or psychological characters, eliminating subjective aspects and fantastic events. According to Galdós and Clarín respectively, "The novel is the image of life," as well as "an artistic copy of reality." Defense of a thesis: the narrators write their works focusing reality through their moral conception, using an omniscient narrator. The defense of a thesis usually compromises the objectivity of the novel. Themes relevant to the reader, such as marital conflicts, infidelity, and defense of ideals. Colloquial and popular language, which acquire great importance because they locate characters firmly in the environment reflected in the text.
Realism and Naturalism in Spain In Spain, Realism installed itself with extreme facility, since a precedent in picaresque novels already existed. Furthermore, relevant themes were extant in that cornerstone of Spanish and world literature, Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote. Realism reached its maximum splendor in the second half of the 19th century with authors such as Juan Valera, José María de Pereda, and Benito Pérez Galdós, although it never established a canon as rigorous as that produced by the school of Balzac. In the work of Galdós, and later in that of Clarín, Pardo Bazán, and Blasco Ibáñez, clear naturalistic influences exist, but without the scientific and experimental foundations that Émile Zola sought to imprint in his Realist works. They do share a spirit of subversiveness and struggle in the face of conservative ideology. The Realist novel generally reflects regional settings. For example, Pereda's novels take place in Cantabria, Juan Valera's in Andalusia, and Claríns in Asturias. Benito Perez Galdós's tendency to set his stories in Madrid, an urban environment, is a notable exception.
Naturalism in Spain, as it did in France, also had its detractors, sometimes provoking great controversies. Naturalist Pedro Antonio de Alarcón carried on a fierce rivalry with José María de Pereda who, impassioned, once described Realism as immoral. The movement's most exalted and ardent defenders were Benito Perez Galdós and Emilia Pardo Bazán, who provoked one of the most furious conflicts with her 1883 publication of La cuestión palpitante ("The Throbbing Question").
The novel: main authors
Juan Valera
Juan Valera y Alcalá-Galiano (Cabra, Córdoba, October 1824 – Madrid, April 1905) belonged to an aristocratic family. He carried out diplomatic missions in several countries and held important political positions. His career as a novelist began when he was around fifty years old. In his last years he was victim of progressive blindness.
From his beginnings, Valera was opposed to Romanticism, because of its extremism, as much as he was to Realism, because they prevented him from totally realizing his vision. He only adopted a realist position when he chose real settings (like his native Andalusia) and lifelike characters, although he rejected the less attractive aspects of reality, which ran contrary to the credo of the naturalists and some realists.
His importance is due to his novels; the first of them is Pepita Jiménez (1874), mostly written in epistolary form. In this work, the story of a widow is told. The widow agrees with a father that his son should be taken away from town to keep him away from her and to allow him to pursue his aspiration to the priesthood. Other important works are Doña Luz (which deals with questions of religious vocation) and Juanita la Larga. This third novel recounts the idyll of Don Paco, a fiftyish man, with the protagonist, who wishes to redeem herself through an honest marriage.
Juan Valera was a liberal politician and a religious skeptic. He used a simple, although non-vulgar, literary language. When he died, the writers of the Generation of the 98 retained a deep respect for him. Today he is considered by many critics as the best Spanish prose writer of the 19th century, while recognizing the creative superiority of Galdós.
José María de Pereda
José María de Pereda was born in Polanco (province of Santander, present-day Cantabria) in 1833. He belonged to an Hidalgo family, he traveled widely abroad, and he was a Carlist deputy, although later he dedicated himself to the cultivation of his lands and to literature. He maintained a friendship with Galdós, despite their opposing political ideologies. He died in 1906 in his home town.
He began his literary production as a costumbrista: inclined to realism with aspects of impressionism, he published Escenas montañosas ("Mountainous scenes"). Later, he would find his ideal formula for the novel, imbuing that costumbrism with a vision which conveyed his love for the landscape and the people of the mountains, with their passions and their characteristic language. In his first novels of this type ("idyllic novel"), he depicted the peacefulness and ignorance of rustic people confronting the political machinations of modern life (Don Gonzalo de la Gonzalera and De tal palo tal astilla). He defended a thesis that nowadays few would accept: like father, like son. The novel ends as Pereda decides to abandon the explicit defense of any argument. Stories like Sotileza (epic of Cantabrian fishermen) and La puchera belong to this second period. The one that is considered his masterpiece is Peñas arriba (1895), whose descriptive bucolic style and casticismo seem antiquated today. In spite of that, José María de Pereda is considered a great narrator, possessed of great descriptive and epic capacity.
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón was born in Guadix (Granada) in 1833. He was one of the authors principally responsible for the domination of realism over romantic prose at that time. He was a politician as well as a writer, and his ideology evolved from liberal positions to more traditional ones.