Duque de Rivas
(Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas; Córdoba, 1791-Madrid, 1865) Spanish poet and playwright whose work is considered emblematic of Hispanic romanticism.With liberal ideas, he fought against the French in the war of independence and later against the absolutism of Fernando VII, for which he had to go into exile in Malta.These experiences inspired some of his poems, such as With eleven mortal wounds, in the manner of ancient pastoral romances.Under the influence of his friend Manuel José Quintana and of the then dominant aesthetics, his first verses (collected in Poesías , 1813) and plays, such as Ataúlfo (1814) and Lanuza (1822), were framed within the neoclassical order.However, during his Maltese exile he met the work of William Shakespeare, Walter Scott and Lord Byron and joined the romantic trend with the poems The Exile and The Outlaw's Dream (1824), and The Malta Lighthouse (1828).
Ángel de Saavedra, Duke of Rivas
He lived in France from 1830 to 1834, the year he was able to return to Spain and inherit the title of nobility and a great fortune.It then began its evolution towards the conservative ideology.After the events of La Granja, he resigned his portfolio of the Interior and went into exile in Lisbon.His most representative works are from this period: The foundling Moor or Córdoba and Burgos in the 11th century (1834), "legend in twelve romances" on the theme of the infants of Lara and the bastard Mudarra who It is considered a foundational piece of romanticism in Spain, and the drama in prose and verse Don Álvaro or the force of fate (1835), whose premiere met a thunderous success that recalls the one that Victor Hugo had obtained in France with his Hernani .
Don Álvaro or the force of fate inaugurated the Spanish romantic theater and with it the modern theater in Spain.In this work all the typical elements of romanticism appear, such as melancholy or pessimism, and a characteristic theme is developed: that of the man dragged into disgrace by a destiny against which his will can do nothing.The romantic principles of fatality and rebellion emerge, as in classical tragedy, as expressions of a social and perhaps cosmic system determined by injustice as a transcript of destiny, which, as an irresistible force resulting from the mysterious combination of chance and necessity, governs the acts of the characters.
Later, the Duke of Rivas was ambassador in Naples (1846) and in Paris (1859), and director of the Royal Spanish Academy.From his last stage are the comedy You are worth as much as you have (1840), the drama The disappointment of a dream (1842) and the historical study History of the uprising of Naples (1848).In 1841 he published his Historical Romances : from this collection of sixty-nine romances stands out a taste for the decorative and descriptive, for the almost pictorial sensations in which his fondness for this art was recognized, from which he arrived to be a remarkable teacher, as well as the thematic variety.Among those with a medieval atmosphere, romances such as Don Álvaro de Luna and An antique in Seville deserve to be mentioned; others are situated in the time of the Habsburgs: A loyal Castilian , A night in Madrid , Memories of a great man , The greater disappointment and The Count of Villamediana .In those years he also wrote some romantic legends in the style of Zorrilla, but with less fluency, such as The miraculous lily (1847).
Comments
Post a Comment