A little point about literary language
Castilian is attested as a language since the 10th century, but the first literary work, the Cantar de mío Cid, dates from the 12th century. Spanish became established very early on, much faster than French. Works from the 14th century can be easily understood by a cultured person, and those from the 16th century can be read by an even wider audience, as the grammatical and syntactic structures are very similar to those used in Spain today. Spanish was also the first vulgar European language to have its own grammar, with that of Antonio de Nebrija (1492), which he placed on the same level of dignity as Latin. In 1714, the Academy of Languages was founded, and in 1611, Sébastien de Covarrubias published the Trésor de la langue castillane. In 1726, the Spanish Academy published the Dictionary of Authorities.
A Spanish style
The 15th century, Spain's Golden Age, saw the rise of the picaresque novel. The heroes are generally pícaros (rascals), who suffer society and its miseries with great detachment. The play La Celestina, attributed to Fernando de Rojas, laid the foundations for this literary trend. A young man uses subterfuge to win the heart of his beloved. El Lazarillo de Tormes, recounting the misadventures of a young man who works for various sinister masters, is another classic of this movement. At the same time, the Cordovan Luis de Góngora y Argote became the lyric poet par excellence. In Soledades(Solitudes), he refers to mythology. The Madrilenian playwright Lope de Vega (1562-1635), who wrote over a thousand plays, gave honor a collective value.
But the best known of all is undoubtedly Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616). The life of the genius of Spain's Golden Age, born in Alcadá de Henares, is not without its darker side. Born into a large family, he studied at university with a master who was a disciple of Erasmus, before leaving for Rome with Cardinal Acquaviva. He became a soldier in the Papal troops and took part in the Battle of Lepanto (1571), where he lost an arm. Returning home, he was taken prisoner by the Turks in 1575 and spent five years in the penal colony of Algiers. On his return to Spain, he married and devoted himself to literature, as a means of exorcising his bad memories of being a convict. In 1585, he published La Galatée, a pastoral novel. He subsequently accepted the post of governor of Andalusia; during his term of office, he was involved in corruption, which led to a further spell in prison. In 1605, El Ingenioso Hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha was published; the adventures of this candid knight were enthusiastically received by the public. In 1613, further success was achieved with Nouvelles exemplaires, dedicated to the Viceroy of Naples, his protector, the Count of Lemos. The text is peppered with references to his love life and deeper considerations of Spanish society. Two years later, Cervantes wrote the sequel to Don Quixote. In it, he tells the story of a quirky aristocrat whose mind has been led astray by chivalric literature, and whose episodes are based on real life. We follow the adventures of this man, both dreamer and unfortunate, who, accompanied by his faithful valet Sancho Pança, attempts to save the world. The work, comical in its situations, is also bitter. Don Quixote becomes the archetypal anti-hero. Cervantes died on April 23, 1616, the same day as another literary genius, William Shakespeare. For his part, Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645) focused on burlesque and satirical poetry, as well as the picaresque novel. El Buscón is certainly his most important work. The playwright Tirso de Molina imposed his type of Don Juan in works that could be considered secular or religious. The Abuser of Seville is the first Don Juan.
Modern literature: the interference of politics
The year 1898 saw the loss of Cuba and a deep reflection among writers and poets on the future of Spain. Among the "98 generation", the names of Antonio Machado (1875-1939), Rafael Alberti and Federico García Lorca stand out. Antonio Machado (1875-1939), poet and playwright born in Seville in 1875, is one of the great writers of the 1898 generation. In his writings, he focuses on the interiority of his characters. After a trip to Paris in 1899, he published his first poems in the magazine Electra ; in 1903, he published his book Soledades(Solitudes). Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), poet and playwright born in Fuente Vaqueros (near Granada) in 1898, studied philosophy and literature at the University of Granada, as well as law. His first play, El maleficio de la mariposa(The Maleficio of the Butterfly) was a failure, but he never lost hope and reached his moment of glory with Maríana Pineda, a patriotic drama, written in 1927. In 1928, he published Romancero gitano, his major work, in which the popular and the cultural blend to describe the world of the unloved gypsies. His last work, La Casa de Bernarda Alba(1936), is his most widely performed play. During the civil war, he was arrested by Franco's army and shot ten days later, accused of being a troublemaker and an agitator of the social order. Rafael Alberti (1902-1999) wrote: "I have no profession, that is, I am only a poet." As such, he was awarded the National Prize for Literature in 1925 and the Cervantes Prize in 1983. Born in Cadiz in 1902, he arrived in Madrid at the age of 15. A political exile in 1939, on his return he won a seat as a deputy for the Communist Party, which he eventually gave up. The last poet of the 1927 generation, he died in Madrid on October 28, 1999, aged 96.
The end of the Civil War saw the emergence of a number of new thinkers who placed the social question at the heart of their reflections. Spanish literature seemed to rise from the ashes, with playwrights like Alfonso Sastre and novelists like Camilo José Cela, Antonio Ferres and Ramón J. Sender.
South American authors
In the 20th century, Spanish literature was enriched by the original and innovative contributions of South American authors such as García Márquez, Pablo Neruda and Octavio Paz... Let's take a moment to look at the first. Born in Colombia in 1927 and dying in 2014 in Mexico City, Gabriel García Márquez was an author of novels and short stories, as well as a journalist and political activist. Violence and solitude are among his favorite themes. His first novel, Des feuilles dans la bourrasque, was published in 1955. This was followed by Pas de lettre pour le colonel (1956), Cent ans de solitude (1967), Chronique d'une mort annoncée (1981)... In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for "his novels and short stories, which combine fantasy and reality in the rich complexity of a poetic universe reflecting the life and conflicts of a continent".
Some other authors
Pío Baroja (1872-1956). Representative of the "98 generation", he is considered by critics to be the greatest Spanish writer of the 20th century. Born in San Sebastián, he left to study medicine in Madrid, a city that so seduced him that he spent most of his life there. His first novel, Vidas sombrías, was published in 1900 and served as the prelude to a trilogy about the land of his ancestors, Tierra vasca: La casa de Aizgorri (1900), El mayorazgo de Labraz (1903) and Zalacaín el aventurero (1909).
Camilo José Cela (1916-2002) was awarded the Cervantes Prize, the Principe de Asturias Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1989, and was a member of the Real Academia. A polemical man, he is as admired as he is hated. His first novel, The Family of Pascual Duarte, a violent and bloody story published in 1942, caused a scandal. Madera de Boj(Burning Wood), his most recent (1999), is a kind of literary and stylistic testament.
The 20th and early 21st centuries were also marked by literary greats: Jan Benet (1927-1993) and his best-selling 1980 detective novel L'Air d'un crime(El aire de un crimen); Manuel Vázquez Montallbán (1939-2003), who was awarded the National Prize for Spanish Literature in 1995; and Eduardo Mendoza (b. 1943), who was awarded the Cervantes Prize for his body of work in 2016.
Beautiful contemporary feathers
Javier Marias (1951-2022) is known for his classic, elegant style. He published his first novel(Los dominios del lobo) in 1971. He won the Prix Herralde for L'Homme sentimental (1986) and the Prix Femina étranger for Demain dans la bataille pense à moi (1996). His trilogy Ton visage demain (2004, 2007, 2010) was also a great success.
Madrid-basedLucía Etxebarría (1966- ) made a name for herself with her biography of Nirvana singer Kurt y Courtney: aguanta esto (1996). The following year, 1997, saw the publication of her first novel: Amour, Prozac et autres curiosités. Other novels are available in French: Béatriz et les corps célestes (1998, 2005 for translation), De l'amour et autres mensonges (2001/2005); the short story collection Aime-moi, par favor (2003/2006) or Je ne souffrirai plus par amour (2008), Sex & Love addicts (2010) and Le Don empoisonné de la folie (2017).
In Madrid, the Casa-Museo de Lope de Vega
Lope de Vega was a prolific playwright of the Spanish Golden Age. His house, built in the 16th century and in which he lived from 1610 until his death in 1635, is nestled on Calle Cervantes in Madrid. Although the house has undergone many changes over the centuries, since the 1930s efforts have been made to restore its original authenticity. Everything has been reproduced and objects that belonged to Lope de Vega put in place. Visitors can thus discover a multitude of objects, furniture, books and works of art. Tours are available in French!
