5 WRITERS REPRESENTING SPANISH REALISM - LITERATURE - 2025

The writers representing Spanish Realism are the majority of the authors who emerged in the mid-nineteenth century after the decline of Romanticism and the rise of the French current of Realism.

Realism was characterized by abandoning romantic ideas a bit and migrating objectively to contemporary society, actions and its people, with the idea of ​​presenting a portrait of society through literature.

Realism, as a term, began to be used by painting and the contemporary trend at the time to make more realistic portraits.

But the term permeated literature, coincidentally around the time that Honoré de Balzac changed the paradigms of the novel toward a more social and moral end.

French Balzac's style fit very well to define the genre, but it was quite strict while Spanish Realism was a bit more flexible.

The golden age of Spanish Realism is considered to have been towards the end of the century, during the so-called generation of the eighties.

The 5 main representatives of Spanish Realism

1- Benito Pérez Galdós (1843 - 1920)

He is considered the most representative of the writers of the movement. Canarian of origin, he settled in Madrid before he was 20 years old and visited Paris shortly after, following in the footsteps of Balzac, a character whom he always admired.

Of his work, the collection Los episodios nacional stands out, a series of writings in which the memory of the Spaniards during the 19th century was collected as a chronicle through their characters, and covers the period from 1873 to the beginning of the 20th century.

5- José María de Pereda (1833 - 1906)

He was a friend of Galdós and dedicated himself to literature and to the cultivation of his lands. Being the oldest in this group, he began his writing under the traditional tendency but turned towards Realism by observing the evolution of the genre in France and its surroundings.

Its success was the consequence of the formula of mixing manners with a characteristic language and its vision of mountain people.

Peñas Arriba is considered his masterpiece and he is considered a great storyteller due to his high descriptive capacity.

References

1. Master Lengua - Outstanding Authors of Spanish Realism masterlengua.com
2. Lecturalia - Authors of Spanish Realism lecturalia.com
3. Club Essays - Beginnings Of Spanish Realism clubensayos.com
4. Wikipedia - Spanish Literature of Realism is. wikipedia.org
5. Rincón Castellano - Spanish Literature: author index rinconcastellano.com