PEDRO ANTONIO DE ALARCÓN: BIOGRAPHY AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón y Ariza (1833-1891) was a Spanish writer who lived during the 19th century. He stood out mainly as a novelist and short story writer, although he also published poetry, theatrical dramas and travel stories.

He was also a prominent journalist. He founded and was director of the satirical newspapers El Eco de Occidente and El Látigo. In addition to this, he was a prominent member of the Liberal Union party and came to hold important public positions, including state counselor to King Alfonso XII.

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. Source: Contreras, C. (19th century), via Wikimedia Commons

His literary works have traits of both Realism or Costumbrismo, as well as late Romanticism. His novels El sombrero de tres picos (1874) and El escándalo (1875) are especially famous, as well as his chronicles book Diario de un witness de la guerra de África (1859), which deals with the war between Spain and the Sultanate of Morocco, fought between 1859 and 1860.

This last writing is considered by literary critics as one of the best travel stories in modern Spanish literature.

Biography

Birth, education and youth

Pedro Antonio de Alarcón y Ariza was born in the town of Guadix, province of Granada, on March 10, 1833. He was the fourth son of Don Pedro de Alarcón and Doña Joaquina de Ariza.

He had nine siblings. His father was a descendant of Hernando de Alarcón, who was captain of King Carlos V, as well as Martín de Alarcón, a prominent military man from the conquest of Granada, among other notable relatives.

On his birth certificate he was presented with the name of Pedro Antonio Joaquín Melitón de Alarcón y Ariza. His family, of noble descent, had lost much of their fortune in the Napoleonic wars at the beginning of the 19th century, so they did not have abundant economic resources.

He studied high school in Granada and later enrolled at the Faculty of Law of the university of this city. However, he dropped out of school and later, on the advice of his father, enrolled in the Guadix Seminary to pursue a priestly career. That was a common option that young people made of the time to solve their economic needs.

During his stay at the seminary, he published his first writings in the magazine El Eco del Comercio. By 1853 he decided to leave the priestly career and dedicate himself to writing, so he moved to Madrid. In the Spanish capital he wrote some plays.

Trip to Cádiz and address of several newspapers

After the season in Madrid, he traveled to Cádiz, where he interacted with the young artists and writers who were members of the liberal-leaning Cuerda Granadina association. In 1854 he directed El Eco de Occidente, a combative newspaper with which he entered both journalism and political struggles.

Later he returned to Madrid where he founded El Látigo, another newspaper with a sarcastic tinge and with a marked anti-monarchical and anti-clerical position. In El Látigo he wrote his most scathing articles with the collaboration of intellectuals such as Domingo de la Vega and Juan Martínez Villega.

First novel

After these beginnings in scathing journalism, he published his first novel, entitled El final de Norma. He also did the same with a series of stories, which came to light in important Madrid newspapers such as El Occidente, La América, Semanario Pintoresco español, El Museo Universal, among others. These stories were later compiled into story books.

With these genre-style narratives, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón obtained very good reviews and was noted as a young narrator in the literary environment of Madrid.

Although part of the critics celebrated his work, he also had his detractors, more because of a clash of political tendencies than because of contempt for the quality of his writings.

First play

On November 5, 1857 his first play, The Prodigal Son, was premiered. This piece also received a good reception (although it was censored in some theaters by critics with an ideology contrary to that of the author) and was very successful at the box office, with which the author could be financially comfortable.

Chronicler in the African War and other travels

In 1859, after these successful beginnings in literature and dramaturgy, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón volunteered as a correspondent in the War of Africa, a conflict that pitted the Sultanate of Morocco and the reign of Spain against each other for two years. In October of that year he joined the Ciudad Rodrigo hunter squad.

The chronicles he wrote in the campaigns were published in the newspaper El Museo Universal. Later they were compiled under the title Diary of a witness to the war in Africa, which was successfully sold throughout Spain and considerably increased the fame of its author.

Monument to Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. Source: Enrique Íñiguez Rodríguez (Qoan), from Wikimedia Commons

In 1860 he returned from the war in Africa and was decorated by the government of the Liberal Union. After a brief stay in Madrid, he undertook a new trip to Italy that resulted in the publication in 1861 of another unique travel diary entitled From Madrid to Naples.

Some years later, in 1870 he published his only collection of poems, entitled Serious and humorous poems. In 1873 he did the same with a third compendium of travel chronicles, La Alpujarra: sixty leagues on horseback preceded by six in diligence, in which descriptions and stories about the province of Granada were collected.

Political career and works of maturity

During the first half of the 1860s, the writer actively participated in Madrid's political life. He was a member of the Liberal Union party, with the permission of its founder, Leopoldo O'Donnell. He held the position of deputy for Cádiz in the Parliament of the Cortes. He also founded the newspaper La Política in the Spanish capital.

In 1865 he married in Granada with Doña Paulina Contreras y Reyes. Eight children were born from the marriage, three of whom died during childhood and four more during youth. His only surviving daughter was Carmen de Alarcón Contreras.

Banishment and participation in the September Revolution

Due to his political tendency he was exiled to Paris shortly after his marriage and returned to Spain in 1868. He took part in the September Revolution of that year, which resulted in the dethronement of Queen Elizabeth II and the constitution of a government of Transition.

After these events he was appointed plenipotentiary minister of the Spanish government in Sweden and later was a deputy for his native Guadix. He was also an ambassador to Norway.

His support for Alfonso XII, nicknamed "The Peacemaker" and his subsequent ascent to the throne, earned him to be appointed councilor of state in 1875.

Publication of more renowned works

In 1874, The Three-Cornered Hat, one of his most recognized and successful realist novels, was published. This work, which deals with a supposed love triangle, inspired in the 20th century the homonymous ballet by Manuel de Falla and many other adaptations to film and theater.

The following year, in 1875, another famous novel by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón, El escándalo, was published. This moralizing account showed more conservative and religious ideas of the author, already entered the decade of the 40 and far from his years as a young protester. Many critics believe that it is a partly autobiographical work.

Entrance to the Royal Spanish Academy

Despite the conflicting positions of the critics regarding his work, on February 25, 1877 he officially entered the Royal Academy of the Spanish Language.

In his speech at this event, entitled La Moral y el Arte, the author expressed his ideas that art should illustrate teachings for the public and thus fulfill a guiding and moralizing function in society.

In 1880 he published another novel with a dramatic and tragic tone, entitled El niño de bola. Shortly after, in 1881 El Capitan Veneno came to light and a year later La Proódiga. All these novels of manners were added to his career as a portraitist in Spanish society.

Retirement in Madrid and death

From 1880 he did not leave Madrid anymore. In this city he spent long hours in his residence, dedicated to writing articles and memoirs and cultivating his garden.

The last novels of the writer were well received by the public and practically ignored by the critics. This caused the author to seclude himself more at home and not to publish more long works, with the exception of Viajes por España. This piece was a travel diary written by the author years before and finally published in 1883.

In 1884 he wrote the article Historia de mis Libros, a kind of account of his career as a writer with anecdotes about the process of writing his most famous works. It was featured in the famous Madrid magazine La Illustration, Spanish and American.

On November 30, 1888, he suffered a stroke that caused hemiplegia from which he never recovered. Two and a half years later, on July 19, 1891, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón died at his residence in Madrid, at 92 Atocha street, as a result of diffuse encephalitis.

His remains rest in the Sacramental de San Justo, San Millán and Santa Cruz cemetery, in Madrid, where important artists, musicians, writers and various personalities from Madrid or active in this city during the 19th and 20th centuries are also buried.

Plays

The novels and stories of Pedro Antonio de Alarcón were influenced by the Spanish romantic and historicist tradition of the early 19th century, represented by writers such as Fernán Caballeros and Ramón de Mesoneros Romanos. However, in his maturity he took a more realistic and moralizing course.

Cover of War of Africa, by Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. Source: Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (1833-1891), via Wikimedia Commons

Some of its scholars may even intuit a certain influence of Edgar Allan Poe's crime novels in certain tales of the author, such as in The Nail.

-Novels

His published novels were: The end of Norma (1855), The three-cornered hat (1874), The scandal (1875), The boy with the ball (1880), Captain Poison (1881) and The prodigal (1882).

The Three-Cornered Hat

Of all his works, the most famous were The Three Cornered Hat and The Scandal.

The first has as protagonists Lucas and Frasquita, a modest couple living in Granada during the reign of Carlos IV. The characters are involved in a series of entanglements and misunderstandings due to the desire of the mayor of the city for Fresquita.

The scandal, for its part, is religious in content, considered a kind of apology for Catholicism. It narrates the misadventures of the young Fabián Conde, who is exposed to social repudiation and plunged into deep internal contradictions for falling in love with a married lady.

-Her stories

The author's stories, which were published in newspapers during the 1850s and early 1860s, were compiled into three volumes entitled Amatories Tales (1881), National Comics (1881), and Implausible Narrations (1882).

The first includes titles such as El clavo, La Comendadora, Natural novel, The ideal beauty, The last skull, Symphony, Tic… Tac… Why was she blonde ?, among others. In national cartoons, the mayor coalman, The Frenchified, The guardian angel, The checkbook, A conversation in the Alhambra, Christmas Eve episodes, Discovery and passage of the Cape of Good Hope, among others.

Unbelievable Narratives is composed of the stories: The six veils, The year in Spitzberg, The friend of death, Moors and Christians, The tall woman, What is heard from a chair in the Prado, I am, I have and I want and The black eyes.

-Travel chronicles

Among his travel chronicles, the most celebrated were those published by the Gaspar y Roig publishing house in 1859, under the title Diary of a witness to the war in Africa, vivid accounts of the events he witnessed in combat during this campaign. These were illustrated by Francisco Ortego Vereda and achieved great popularity.

He also wrote in this genre From Madrid to Naples (1861), La Alpujarra: sixty leagues on horseback preceded by six in diligence (1873) and Viajes por España (1883).

-Newspaper articles

His journalistic articles were collected and published in 1871 under the title Things that were. He also wrote Historia de mis Libros (1874), Literary and Artistic Judgments (1883), which contains his famous speech La Moral y el Arte y Últimas Escrimas (1891), which came out the same year of his death.

References

1. Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. (S. f.) Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: es.wikipedia.org
2. Biography of Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. (S. f.). Spain: Miguel de Cervantes Virtual Library. Recovered from: cervantesvirtual.com
3. From Alarcón and Araiza, Pedro Antonio. (S. f.). (N / a): Escritores.org. Recovered from: writers.org
4. Pedro Antonio de Alarcón. (S. f.). Spain: Spain is culture. Recovered from: xn--espaaescultura-tnb.es
5. Pedro Antonio de Alarcón (S. f.). (N / a): AlohaCriticón. Recovered from: alohacriticon.com