4 Camille Pitollet, La Querelle calderonienne de Johan Nikolas Bohl von Faber et Jose

Joaquin de Mora, reconstitute d’apres les documents originaux (Paris: Alcan, 1909),

Pp.79-80.

5 Hans Juretschke, “La presencia del ideario romantico aleman en la estructura y evolucion

Teorica del romanticismo espanol.” Romanticismo 1 (1982), p. 13.

6 Wellek, History, vol. II, p. 24.

7 M. T. Cattaneo, “Gli esordi del romanticismo in Ispagna e El Europeo.” In Tre studi sulla

Cultura spagnola (Milan: Instituto Cisalpino, 1967), p. 87.

8 Jose Luis Varela, “La autointerpretacion del romanticismo espanol.” In Los origenes del

Romanticismo en Europa (Madrid: Instituto Germano-Espan˜ol de la Sociedad Gorres,

1982), p. 129.

Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008

RomanticisminSpain 347

Rosa or duque de Rivas. All of which might seem contradictory; however, to describe men like Mora and Alcala´ Galiano, as certain modern critics have done, as “existentially” Romantic despite clinging to Neoclassicism in their aesthetic preferences, makes for an even graver distortion.

There has been some reluctance to acknowledge the extent of Bo¨hl’s influence. Guillermo Carnero, nonetheless, locating Bo¨hl within the contextual framework of reactionary thought, describes the polemic as a crucial episode in the development of Romantic ideas in Spain, without which it is impossible fully to comprehend the principal ideological thrust of Spanish Romanticism.9 The defining nature of Bo¨ hl’s perspective is confirmed by the discussion of Romantic ideas in the Barcelona journal El Europeo (“The European”) in 1823–1824, principally in articles by Luigi Monteggia and Ramo´n Lo´pez Soler deriving from Schlegelian historicism; that of Lo´pez Soler was clearly mediated by Bo¨hl.10 As Ermanno Caldera elucidates, Romantic theory and its associated perspectives took on a conservative and nationalistic colouring even in the hands of a political moderate like Lo´ pez Soler.11 Trenchant Neoclassicist opposition to Schlegelian Romantic theory continued, meanwhile, in the form of Go´mez Hermosilla’s Arte de hablar en prosa y verso (“The Art of Speech in Prose and Verse”) of 1826 and Mart´ınez de la Rosa’s slightly less intransigent Po e´tica (“Poetics”) of the following year.12

Probably the most influential contribution to the debate was the work of Agust´ın Dura´n (1789–1862) in his Discurso sobre el influjo que ha tenido la cr´ıtica moderna en la decadencia del teatro antiguo espan˜ ol y sobre el modo con que debe ser considerado para juzgar convenientemente de su me´rito peculiar (“Discourse on the influence exerted by modern criticism in the decadence of traditional Spanish drama and on the manner in which such theatre ought to be judged if we are duly to assess its unique merits”), published in 1828. Dura´n followed the Schlegelian peri-odization of Classical and Romantic, ancient and modern, placing similar stress on chivalry and religion: Romantic drama, he argued, originated in the chivalric way of life, in medieval history and legend, and in Christian spirituality; the apogee of the Spanish stage he linked with military domination and empire. The Discurso contained elements of francophobia but was not fanatically anti-classicist. Dura´n objected most pointedly to the assessment of Golden Age theatre by Neoclassical criteria.

9

Guillermo Carnero, Los or´ıgenes del romanticismo reaccionario espan˜ol: el matrimonio B o¨ hl de Faber (Valencia: Universidad de Valencia, 1978), p. 19.

Io

BrianJ. Dendle, “Two Sources of Lo´pez Soler’s Articles in El Europeo.” Studies in Romanticism 5 (1965–1966), p. 50.

II

Ermanno Caldera, Primi manifesti del romanticismo spagnolo (Pisa: Universita` di Pisa, 1962), pp. 27–35 , 43–44.

12

Derek W. Flitter, Spanish Romantic Literary Theory and Criticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), pp. 32–34 .

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34 8 The Forging of a Nation: The Nineteenth Century

Modern critical reaction to Duran has been mixed. In his edition of the text, Shaw judges the Discurso a timid early example of Romantic ideas, its traditionalist vision revealing no dangerous tincture of radicalism, and inadequate in the sense that it contained no intimation of a new and anguished sensibility.13 David T. Gies is more sympathetic, stressing that Duran deliberately excluded what he regarded as subversive features alien to “genuine” Romanticism.14 Jose Escobar likewise underscores the revulsion felt by both Duran and Alberto Lista at the threat of revolution; he identifies in several of Duran’s works a counter-revolutionary ideology connecting Romanticism with reactionary cultural nationalism, an idealised Volksgeist-dominated vision centered on Golden Age drama that represented the means of casticista (“pure”) salvation from contemporary radical Romanticism, which Duran was later to label “romanticismo malo” or evil Romanticism.15 Duran would consistently employ the tenets of Romantic historicism with a Schlegelian content in prefacing the ballad collections or Romanceros he edited and published between 1828 and 1832.

• Thus when more radical Romantic works appeared, chiefly…

There are numerous indications of the growing influence of this set of ideas. The change in Lista’s own perspective, from virtually unadulterated Neoclassical preferences toward an acceptance of Schlegelian historicism, is documented, while another important theoretical statement came from Juan Donoso Cortes (1809-1853) in his Discurso de apertura en Cdceres

• Using principally the twelfth and fourteenth…

Sentimental theatre mixed elements of comedy and tragedy, but in the hands of its best practitioners it became an effective way to promote the education of the audience and reform of the stage, paving the way for the drama of the Romantic era. Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 Part

• Despite historicist Romanticism’s nostalgia…

The diffusion of these attitudes meant first of all a widespread re-evaluation of the oral poetic tradition, especially Spain’s historical ballads, or romances. Agust´ın Dura´n (1789–1862) spurred interest by publishing his carefully compiled ballad collections in a series of well-received volumes beginning in 1828. There was broad agreement among writers

• Coleccio´n de e´glogas e idilios realistas y de epigramas…

It is difficult to define Realist poetry in this period, even if it is done in a fashion as provisional and methodological as that proposed by Urrutia: “La poes´ıa realista es la que se escribe entre el final del romanticismo y This chapter has been translated from the Spanish by Matthieu

• Tw o aspects of modernista poetry which have been completely overlooked…

10 Richard A. Cardwell, “Mirrors and Myths: Antonio Machado and the Search for Self.” Romance Studies 16 (1990), pp. 31-42; Jose Mar´ıa Aguirre, Antonio Machado, poeta simbolista (Madrid: Taurus, 1973). Cambridge Histories Online © Cambridge University Press, 2008 508 The Modern, Modernismo, and the Turn of the Century Restricted set of images, by