Spanish literature

Prose and poetry of Spain, written in any of the country's languages. Spanish literature has roots in the 12th century, but its golden age was in the 15th–17th centuries with Miguel de Cervantes's novel Don Quixote and the plays of Lope de Vega and Calderón de la Barca. Outstanding in the early 20th century was the playwright and poet Federico García Lorca.

The Moorish period Of the classical Spanish epics, the 12th-century El cantar de mio Cid is the only complete example. The founder of Castilian prose was the 13th-century King Alfonso X, El Sabio (the Wise), who also wrote lyric poetry in the Galician dialect. The first true poet was the 14th-century satirist Juan Ruiz (c. 1283–1350), archpriest of Hita.

To the 15th century belong the Marquis of Santillana (Iñigo López de Mendoza), poet, critic, and collector of proverbs; chivalric romances, such as the Amadis de Gaula; ballads dealing with the struggle against the Moors; and the Celestina, a novel in dramatic form.

Spain's era as a great power The flowering of verse drama began with Lope de Rueda (died 1565), and reached its height with Vega, who wrote hundreds of plays as well as novels and poetry, and Calderón de la Barca, author of La vida es sueño/Life Is a Dream (1635). Poetry ranged from the work of the lyrical Garcilaso de la Vega to the patriotic Fernando de Herrera (1534–1597), the mystics St Teresa and Luis de León, and the elaborate style of Luis de Góngora (1561–1627), who popularized the decadent ‘gongorism’. In fiction there developed the pastoral romance, for example Jorge de Montemayor's Diana; and the picaresque novel, established by the anonymous Lazarillo del Tormes, Cervantes, and the biting satire of Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas.

Influence of European movements In the 18th century the Benedictine monk Benito J Feijoo introduced scientific thought to Spain, and French influence emerged in the comedies of Leandro F de Moratín (1760–1828) and others. Typical of the romantic era were the poets and dramatists Angel de Saavedra (Duque de Rivas) (1791–1865) and José Zorilla (1817–1893), and the lyricist José de Espronceda. Among 19th-century novelists were Pedro de Alarcón, Emilia, condesa de Pardo Bazán (1852–1921), and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez; a 19th-century dramatist is José Echegaray.

Modern times The ‘Generation of 1898’ included the philosophers Miguel de Unamuno and José Ortega y Gasset (1883–1955); the novelist Pío Baroja (1872–1956); the prose writer Azorín (José Martínez Ruiz); and the Nobel prize-winning poet Juan Ramón Jiménez. The next generation included the novelist Camilo José Cela; the poets Antonio Machado, Rafael Alberti (1902–1999), Luis Cernuda (1902–1963), and the Nobel prizewinner Vincente Aleixandre; and the dramatists Jacinto Benavente (1866–1954), the brothers Quintero, and – the most striking – Federico García Lorca. The Civil War and the strict censorship of the Franco dictatorship disrupted mid-20th-century literary life, but later names include the novelists Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio (1927– ) and Juan Goytisolo (1931– ); and the poets Blas de Otero (1916– ) and José Hierro (1922– ).