Spanish Realist literature  

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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.

When the Romantic movement waned, a new literary movement arose in Europe in the middle of the 19th century: Realism. It was a style that originated in France around 1850 which developed from some aspects of Romanticism, mainly costumbrismo. Romanticism slowly declined and artists began to rebel against "art for art's sake"; The literary imagination of the moment grew tired of fanciful and colorful depictions, and now focused 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 it was adopted later by literature. In literature it was applied mainly to the novel. One of the reasons for the popular success of novels is their publication in newspapers of the time. The publishers issued the novel in installments 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 were of social character, and the writers considered 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 occurred (1871-1873). Later, the short era of the First Republic began (1873-1874), which was 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 rooted in biological heredity. Thus,Naturalism adopts a materialist and determinist concept of people, who are not morally responsible for their actions and situations, because they are the result of environment and heredity. While the realist writer is conscious of what happens, the naturalist investigates cause and effect. Alcoholics, the insane, and psychopaths were common in his works, predicated on Zola's belief that environment was to blame for 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", that is to say, he moves the characters through a particular story to show that the succession of facts will be the one that is demanded by the determinism of the studied phenomena.

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, who was considered inside the movement, deals with this in her article La cuestión palpitante (The Burning Question) in 1883. Additionally, passages of authors such as Benito Pérez Galdós have been considered naturalistic, but that has been explicitly rejected by the majority of literary critics. When speaking of Spanish Naturalism, the border with the Realism is not clear and, because theories were not adopted, it is not easy to differentiate both movements well.