4.1: The 19th Century in Spain

 

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The Spanish 19th century is characterized by the decline of the empire and a crisis of power, amid a violent debate between monarchy and democracy, tradition and modernization. How lonely the nation was to one day populate so many people! The nation whose empire stretched from Dusk to the East! You shed tears, unhappy now, sovereign of the world, and no one from your charming face can erase deep pain! —José de Espronceda (1808-1842), in “To the Fatherland” Lyrical Poems (1840). Cuán solitaria la nación que un día poblara inmensa gente! ¡La nación cuyo imperio se extendía del Ocaso al Oriente! Lágrimas viertes, infeliz ahora, soberana del mundo, ¡Y nadie de tu faz encantadora borra el dolor profundo!           –José de Espronceda(1808-1842), en "A la patria" Poesías líricas (1840).

“The family of Charles IV (1801).

Sociopolitical Life

At the end of the 18th century, Charles IV of Bourbon (1778-1808) ascended the throne, who did not take direct control of State affairs, but left the government in the hands of his minister Manuel Godoy, the favorite of his wife, Queen María Luisa. A famous portrait, The Family of Carlos IV, by Francisco de Goya, shows the fragmentation of the royal family and the crisis of monarchical power in Spain (note that each person is looking in a different direction). The former Spanish hegemony in Europe is now a thing of the past.

Minister Manuel Godoy's collaboration with Napoleon Bonaparte caused years of war and destruction. At the beginning of the 19th century, Spain declared war on England, and in the Battle of Trafalgar (1805), Spanish and French squadrons were decisively defeated. Charles IV abdicated in favor of his son Ferdinand VII (1813-1833), but the French army invaded Spain in 1808, and Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother, reigned until 1813. Many Spaniards fought for their country's freedom in the War of Independence (1808-1814). Ferdinand VII regained his crown, and French troops withdrew in 1814. The Spanish people received Ferdinand VII as king despite his collaboration with Napoleon, but his reign is characterized by brutal repression against liberals. These years of internal chaos are also complicated by the wars of independence in Latin America (1808-1824), during which Spain lost most of its territories in America (except Cuba and Puerto Rico).

After the death of Ferdinand VII (1833), his daughter Isabel II (1833-1868), who was then three years old, inherited the throne, and her uncle Don Carlos did not recognize her as queen. This is why two strong civil conflicts took place: the Carlist Wars (1833-1840; 1847-1849). Thus, the first half of the 19th century in Spain was marked by economic crisis, political upheaval, and social violence. Around 1833, many political exiles who had taken refuge in England and France returned to Spain, bringing with them the new trends of European thought that were driving Spanish Romanticism.

During the 1860s and 1870s, sociopolitical instability persisted, as the aristocracy was too weak to maintain power, but the bourgeoisie was not yet strong enough to impose itself. Liberals rebelled against the monarchy in the so-called “Glorious Revolution of 1868” that overthrew Queen Elizabeth II, and in 1869 a republican (democratic) constitution was voted on, but immediately afterwards the Carlists began a new civil war. In 1873, the First Republic was proclaimed, a brief period that lasted until 1874, when the supporters of Alfonso XII named him king and restored the monarchy. However, the new king died at a very young age, and his widow, María Cristina, remained regent during the minority of her son, Alfonso XIII. At the end of the 19th century, Cubans and Filipinos rose up against the Spanish government, and the United States declared war on Spain in the so-called Cuban War (1898). In this war, known in English as “The Spanish-American War”, Spain will lose its last colonies: Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam. These events led to a profound revision of the national identity, which was reflected in cultural production and political life at the turn of the century.

 

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Romanticism

A reaction against Enlightenment rationalism had begun in Germany and England since the 1770s, which valued unscientific knowledge, the irrational, the emotive and the mysterious. This reaction, later called romanticism, spread throughout the Hispanic world from the beginning of the 19th century, channeling the nationalist and passionate ideals that accompanied the struggles for independence and the founding of new nations or political systems.

In general terms, the literary movement of Romanticism opposes the rationalist and neoclassical normativity of the 18th century, defending instead originality, emotionality, and both creative and political freedom. The first Romantics were well-known poets and playwrights such as Schiller and Goethe in Germany, Wordsworth, Shelley and Keats in England, or Chateaubriand and Victor Hugo in France. From the latter is the famous phrase: “Romanticism is liberalism in literature”, which emphasizes unfinished (unpolished) and passionate work against strict academic rules. The basic features can be summarized as follows:

1) The conception of the work as an expression of the creative self and its subjective world (as opposed to neoclassical objectivism).
2) The cult of individualism and the originality of the artist (contrary to the Enlightenment emphasis on order and clarity of expression).
3) The predominance of emotions and the use of nature as a means to reflect them (versus eighteenth-century rationalism).
4) The modern ideal of political and personal freedom, with a strong nationalist or patriotic tendency that emphasizes local language (as opposed to encyclopedic universalism and enlightened despotism).
5) The idealization of the past (medieval, baroque, pre-Columbian) and of the people (as opposed to the cult of Greco-Roman classicism).
6) Exoticism and at the same time the taste for the typical, the picturesque and the folkloric, which was something “exotic” for intellectuals (in contrast to rationalist didactics).
7) Search for new metric combinations in poetry, with freer rhymes, such as assonance.

Romanticism, then, can be considered as an individualistic rebellion that seeks to emphasize the emotional in the artistic sphere. Romantics have a great appreciation for the personal, almost a cult of self and national character. This is why romantic heroes are often prototypes of rebellion (Don Juan, the pirate, Prometheus) and authors seek freer and more popular rhymes. Likewise, there is a renewal of themes and environments. The nightly and sordid environments are appreciated, looking for the fantastic and exotic stories that the enlightened and neoclassical people ridiculed. And it is because of this individualism and desire for originality that the movement has different, sometimes opposing, characteristics in each country and in each poet.

In Spain, Romanticism represents an ideologically liberal movement that values individualism and the exaltation of the “I,” as well as feelings, freedom, and the national past. The works are often read as an expression of emotions in the landscape they describe. Among the writers of the romantic era are the poet José de Espronceda, whose “Pirate Song” (1840) is still taught in many Hispanic schools, as well as the playwrights Don Ángel de Saavedra, better known as the Duke of Rivas, author of Don Álvaro or La Fuerza del Fino (1835), and José Zorrilla, author of the well-known play Don Juan Tenorio (1844), inspired by the famous “Don Juan”, which had been converted into a classic by the baroque playwright Tirso de Molina two centuries earlier in The Burler of Seville (c. 1603).

Romantic poetry from the second half of the 19th century, which some critics describe as post-romantic, is characterized by its lyricism and musicality, as is the case of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer and Rosalía de Castro. Because of their sonorous and simple language, the works of both, but especially that of Bécquer, announce a new trend in Spanish poetry. The governmental chaos of this era is also reflected in the political fragmentation of writers and intellectuals, who are divided into two camps: liberals such as José de Espronceda or the novelist Benito Pérez Galdós, and conservatives such as the Duke of Rivas or the poet Ramón de Campoamor, known for his sentimental poems collected in Las Humoradas (1886-1888).

 

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Neoclassical vs. Romantic Aesthetics

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Fuentes

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• Blanco Aguinaga, Carlos, et al. Social history of Spanish literature. Akal, 2000.
• Carr, R. Spain 1808-1936. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
• Davies, Catherine, ed. The Companion to Hispanic Studies. Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Flitter, D. Spanish Romantic Theory and Criticism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Garcia de Cortázar, Fernando and José Manuel González Vesga. A brief history of Spain. Editorial Alliance, 2017.
• Glendinning, N. A Literary History of Spain: The Eighteenth Century. London: Berrn; New York: Barnes & Noble, 1972.
• Kattan Ibarra, Juan. Cultural perspectives of Spain. NTC Publishing, 1990.
• Navas Ruiz, R. Spanish Romanticism. 4th edn, Madrid: Cátedra, 1990.