José María de Pereda. Pereda, a friend of Galdós,
wrote variously about class friction in Madrid, for which
he endured much flak, and about the rural beauty of
provincial Spain, for which he gained much praise.
As the 21stchild of a country squire he brought an
engaging insight to the regional novel, best seen in
Peñas arriba(1895), the story of Marcelo, a Madrileño
who proves his worth to a country community by
trapping bears, battling through blizzards and the like.
Pereda was rare among the Realists in seeking a
morally pleasing conclusion to his novels.
Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. Alarcón tried his hand
at law, religion and politics before finally finding his
niche with the novel and, in particular, the short story.
He built on theCostumbrismostyle of writers like
Fernán Caballero.El sombrero de tres picos(1874)
is considered his masterpiece. It paints an intimate
portrait of village life in his native Andalusia, weaving
a humorous story of love, betrayal and revenge.
Manuel de Falla made Alarcón’s story into a famous
ballet in 1919.
What was Naturalism?
Led again by France, and Emile Zola in particular,
literature delicately tweaked Realism in the 1880s and
came up with Naturalism. Almost indistinguishable from
Realism, the new mode claimed to include every aspect
of life in a novel.The unedited, inescapable details of
individuals, society and locations were thus depicted,
although most Spanish Naturalist literature stopped
short of the rather godless, gloomy French model in
which man was utterly bound by his roots and
surroundings.
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- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
