RECURSOS
DIDÁCTICOS
THE HISTORICAL NOVEL
In the mid-19th century the historical novel was the fashionable literary genre. A multitude of authors cultivated it following in the footsteps of V. Hugo, A. Dumas and especially W. Scott, whose works, optimistic and encouraging of the social promotion of the protagonists, fit perfectly with liberal ideology.
In the historical novels of Spanish Romanticism, the selection of the subject was generally guided by the possibility of establishing parallels with contemporary problems. The extensive list of works that have medieval faction struggles as a backdrop, for example, are clearly related to the Carlist wars, in the same way as the frequent appearance of problems raised by the dissolution of the Order of the Temple have to do with the confiscation processes undertaken by the liberal state.
The genre evolved towards an ever greater care for the settings. The increasing and more critical use of historical sources helped to give plausibility and solidity to the plot of the stories, but also, very frequently, there was a tendency to fall into mere exercises in style and a taste for excessively archaeological reconstructions.
Following the Scottian model, the narratives tended to be led by imaginary characters supported by other, secondary characters, taken from historical documentation. However, it was not uncommon for there to be blatant anachronisms in their behaviour, especially when they reveal their emotional state.
Another characteristic feature of the Spanish historical novel of Romanticism is the tendency of the narrator to introduce his own opinions into the story, preventing the reader, who has become a theatrical spectator, from getting involved in the events, which, in passing, generated an inevitable separation between past and present.
First period (1823/1827-1833)
Apart from Pedro Montengón’s precedent, El Rodrigo. Romance épico (1793), which Sebold considers to be the first romantic historical novel, the period appears to be dominated by a series of more or less successful imitations of foreign authors, especially W. Scott.
Rafael de Húmara y Salamanca is considered to be the first to cultivate the historical novel in Spain according to the successful scheme proposed by Scott with Ramiro, conde de Lucena (1823), in which its author expresses nostalgia for a Christian and chivalrous Middle Ages, full of traditional values.
Telesforo de Trueba y Cossío (1799-1835) is another early example of this type of work. His novel Gómez Arias or the moors of the Alpujarras (1828, traducida al castellano en 1831), about the rebellion of the Moriscos, is based on the chronicle by Luis Vélez de Guevara and on the work of the same name by Calderón de la Barca. Its influence is clearly Scottian, and its Alhambra style is striking The castilian (1829), about the struggles between Pedro I el Cruel and Enrique de Trastamara, is not very different. Scottian influence is also evident in it, especially in its use of the average hero as the protagonist, relegating the characters of the chronicles to a secondary role. Trueba is also The Romance of History: Spain (1830), a collection of 24 stories on historical and legendary themes.
Of the prolific Ramón López Soler (1806-1836) it is worth highlighting his work Los bandos de Castilla or el caballero del cisne (1830), about the rivalries between Juan II and the princes of Aragon, also clearly influenced by Scott, and in which one can appreciate a deliberate attempt to fuse historical truth and moral truth. His is also Kar-Osmán, which deals with the loves of a Greek captain and a Spanish noblewoman. In addition to Jaime el Barbudo, set in the time of Fernando VII, and the adventure novel El pirata de Colombia (1832), López Soler wrote two other novels with greater historical content: Enrique de Lorena (1832), set in the time of Enrique III de Francia, and El primogénito de Alburquerque (1833-1834), about the loves of Pedro I el Cruel and la Padilla.
Estanislao de Kotska Vayo y Lamarca (1804-1864) was the author of a couple of sentimental novels, El Voyleano o exaltación de las pasiones (1827) and Los terremotos de Orihuela o Enrique y Florentina (1829), as well as some others with a more costumbrist orientation, such as Aventuras de un elegante (1832). Cultivó la novela histórica en numerosas ocasiones, empezando por La conquista de Valencia por el Cid (1831), in which the correctness of his prose and style stands out, despite its certain affectation. His other titles are Los expatriados o Zulema y Gazul (1834), Juana y Enrique, reyes de Castilla (1835) and La hija del Asia (1848).
Secon period (1834-1844)
The best stories were published during this period, proof of the definitive consolidation achieved by then by the genre.
Mariano José de Larra (1809–1837) wrote El doncel don Enrique el Doliente (1834), a work based on the life of the legendary troubadour Macías, which follows closely, once again, the schemes of W. Scott.
José de Espronceda (1808-1842) wrote the unfortunate Sancho Saldaña o el castellano de Cuellar (1833-1834), a clear imitation of W. Scott’s Ivanhoe, where the most interesting thing is perhaps the autobiographical background with which the author colors the work.
Juan Cortada y Sala (1805-1868) generously cultivated the historical novel. His dedication to the teaching of History is evident in Tancredo en el Asia. Historical romance of the time of the Crusades (1835), a call to attention on the need to faithfully reconstruct the settings and the historical context that frames the action. After La heredera de Sangumi. Original romance of the 12th century (1835) and El rapto de doña Almoldis, Daughter of the Count of Barcelona Berenguer III (1836), his best known El templario y la villana. Chronicle of the 15th Century (1840) constitutes a complete defence of the Order against the accusations, still very widespread at that time, of necromancy.
Patricio de la Escosura (1807-1878) cultivated the historical novel on several occasions, for example, in El conde de Candespina (1832), , set in the time of Doña Urraca and Alfonso VII. The very Scottian Ni rey ni Roque revolves around Gabriel de Espinosa, the pastry chef from Madrigal, a plot that also inspired J. de Cuellar, Fernández y González, Zorrilla, etc. Finally, La conjuración de México (1850) deals with the attempt to name a son of Hernán Cortés king of that country.
Eugenio de Ochoa (1815-1872) wrote El auto de fe (1837), a severe criticism of the monarchy and the Inquisition with the dark death of Don Carlos, son of Felipe II, as the central axis of the action.
Francisco Martínez de la Rosa (1787-1862) wrote Isabel de Solís, reina de Granada (1837), a novel full of erudition, excessive at times, dominated by Alhambraism.
The short Cristianos y moriscos. Novela lastimosa (1838), a sentimental and costumbrista story, but with a careful setting, is a work by the Arabist, bibliophile and numismatist Serafín Estébanez Calderón (1799-1867), in which he addresses the theme of the ill-fated love affair between a Christian soldier, Don Lope, and Zaida, a Moorish woman from the Serranía de Ronda, in the time of Charles V.
Enrique Gil y Carrasco (1815-1846), a follower of Chateaubriand, Lamartine, Byron, Scott and Manzini, published two short novels, Anochecer en San Antonio de la Florida (1838) and El lago de Carucedo (1840), the latter built on a popular tradition that the author places in the 15th century. Of much greater significance is El señor de Bembibre (1844), one of the masterpieces of Spanish historical fiction of all time, in which, in the opinion of some critics, the author uses the theme of the struggles that followed the disappearance of the Order of the Temple in the time of Ferdinand IV as a critique of the process of confiscation undertaken by Mendizábal.
Third period (since 1844)
This last period, already distanced from the influence of W. Scott, is characterized by the abundance of erudition shown by the authors and the careful setting that the works usually exhibit, the product of a greater archaeological sense and a more refined work of documentation.
The prolific Manuel Fernández y González (1821-1888) is responsible for a good number of historical novels, concentrated in his first literary stage. El doncel don Pedro de Castilla (1838) is the first of them, followed by La mancha de sangre (1845), Obispo, casado y rey (1850), El cocinero de Su Majestad. Memorias del tiempo de Felipe III (1857) and El pastelero de Madrigal (1862). En todas ellas descuella su facilidad para armar la trama y desarrollar la intriga.
Francisco Navarro Villoslada (1818-1895) evolved from his beginnings as a liberal follower of Espartero to positions fully embedded in the most intransigent Carlist ideology. He owes his fame to three novels with a regionalist tone and careful setting Doña Blanca de Navarra (1846), Doña Urraca de Castilla. Memoria de tres canónigos (1849) and, above all, Amaya o los vascos en el siglo VIII (1877), about the attempts of García Jiménez, the first Navarrese monarch, to unite Basques and Goths in their resistance against the Muslim invader.
Very committed to the Catalan Reinaxença, Antonio Ribot y Fontseré (1813-1871) wrote two notable historical novels, Juan I de Castilla o las dos coronas (1852) and El quemadero de La Cruz (1869).
Many more authors and titles could be added, most of them halfway between the historical novel and the sentimental serial with a historical setting. It is enough to cite La Sigea (1854) by Carolina Coronado (1823-1911), Los hijosdalgo de Monforte de Benito Vicetto (1824-1876), Don Juan de Serrallonga (1862) by Víctor Balaguer (1824-1901), Don Juan de Austria (1847) by Juan Ariza (1816-1870), El hechicero de Sancho el Bravo by Alfonso García Tejero, El brazo de Dios or memorias del conde de Albornoz by José Velázquez y Sánchez, Las hijas del Cid (1859) by Antonio de Trueba (1819-1889), La espada de San Fernando by Luís Erguílaz (1830-1874) or Ave Maria Stella (1877) by Amós de Escalante (1831-1902).
OTHER NARRATIVE FORMS
The gothic or horror novel
In the first decades of the 19th century, the Gothic or horror novel, which had already been cultivated for decades, enjoyed a notable boom. T. Smollett and H. Walpole proposed a model, imitated and repeated on many occasions, which would end up filling the novels with gruesome scenes and crude descriptions that did not spare the reader any macabre or bloody details, of castles, cemeteries and ruined churches, with a profusion of crypts, passages, dungeons and secret doors, where ghosts and specters appeared and disappeared among storms and gloomy nocturnal landscapes.
The Hispanic production of this type of novels, marked by the irrational, supernatural and mysterious, was scarce. However, the successful funeral gallery of tragic stories, ghosts and bloody shadows, that is, the tragic historian of the catastrophes of the human race (1831), by Agustín Pérez Zaragoza Godínez (n. ca. 1800).
The sentimental novel
Generally aimed at a female audience, the sentimental genre generally moved in terrain very close to that of the moral novel. However, there were not many titles from Spanish authors who cultivated this genre, full of evocative exoticism, constant emotional shocks, sudden twists of fate and abundant tearful sentimentality. However, we can mention La seducción y la virtud, o Rodrigo y Paulina (1822) by Francisco Brotons, Sofia y Enrique (1829) by Vicenta Maturana Rodríguez (1793-1859), as well as Las españolas náufragas, o correspondencia de dos amigas (1831) by Segunda Martínez de Robles, La mujer sensible (1831) by Manuel Benito Aguirre o Gerardo y Eufrosina (1831) by José López Escobar.
The novel with a contemporary theme
Already in the 1930s and 1940s, novels with realistic features appeared, whether in historical novels with contemporary themes or in those set in times strictly contemporary to the author, what was then called “novel of contemporary customs”, closely related, on the other hand, to the serial genre.
Three titles deserve to be highlighted within this genre: La protección de un sastre (1840) by Miguel de los Santos Álvarez (1818-1892), El dios del siglo. Original novel of contemporary customs (1848) by Jacinto Salas y Quiroga (1813-1849) and Luisa o ángel de redención de Manuel Fernández y González (1821-1888).
The serial novel
A genre with no excessive intellectual requirements, aimed at a very wide audience, its works were constructed from a plot loaded with intrigue and plots that used numerous melodramatic resources.
Wenceslao Ayguals de Izco (1801-1875) was perhaps the undisputed representative of the genre, in which he poured a humanitarianism inspired by the ideas of Saint-Simon through a costumbrismo predecessor of realism, often close to authors such as E. Sue. Of his many works, Pobres y ricos o la bruja de Madrid (1849-1850) is perhaps the most successful.
It is also worth noting Gregorio Romero Larrañaga (1815-1872) and his highly successful La enferma del corazón (1846). Lucrecia Borgia (1864) by Manuel Fernández y González (1821-1888), close to the historical intrigues of A. Dumas, as well as El cura de aldea (1861) by Enrique Pérez Escrich (1829-1897), an adaptation of the play of the same name, are two other notable titles.
The tale
Closely linked to costuming and popular literature, , the genuinely romantic tale flourished in Spain between 1825 and 1845 Generally published in magazines such as No me olvides, El Artista or El Correo de las Damas, where they were often accompanied by illustrations, three variants can be distinguished within the genre: the fantastic and marvellous tale, the historical tale and the costumbrista tale. costumbres. A la primera de ellas pertenece The first of these includes La pata de palo (1835) by José de Espronceda or Una mártir desconocida (1848) by Juan Eugenio Hartzenbuch. . The historical tale is represented, for example, by El castillo de Gauzón (1844) by Nicolás Castor de Caunedo. The costumbrista vein is finally evident in Agonías de la Corte (1841) by Miguel de los Santos Álvarez.
LITERATURE
BAQUERO GOYANES, M. (1949) El cuento español en el siglo XIX, Madrid, CISC.
BERNARDI, A. (2005), La mujer en la novela histórica romántica, Perugia, Morlacchi Editore.
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BUENDÍA, F. (ed.) (1963) Antología de la novela histórica española (1830-1844), Madrid, Aguilar.
FERNÁNDEZ PRIETO, C. (1998) Historia y novela: Poética de la novela histórica, Pamplona, EUNSA.
FERRAZ MARTÍNEZ, A. (1992) La novela histórica contemporánea del siglo XIX anterior a Galdós (2 vols.), Madrid, Universidad Complutense.
FERRERAS, J. I. (1972a) La novela por entregas, 1840-1900, Madrid, Taurus.
FERRERAS, J. I. (1972b) Los orígenes de la novela decimonónica (1800-1830), Madrid, Taurus.
FERRERAS, J. I. (1973) Introducción a la sociología de la novela española del siglo XIX, Madrid, Edicusa.
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GOGORZA FLETCHER, M. (1974) The Spanish Historical Novel, 1870-1970: : a study of ten Spanish novelists, and their treatment of the ‘episodio nacional’, Londres, Tamsesis Book.
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