José Zorrilla | |
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| Born | José Zorrilla y Moral (1817-02-21)21 February 1817 Valladolid, Spain |
| Died | 23 January 1893(1893-01-23) (aged 75) Madrid, Spain |
| Occupation | Poet,playwright |
| Language | Spanish |
| Literary movement | Romanticism |
| Notable works | Don Juan Tenorio |
| Spouse | Florentina O’Reilly, Juana Pacheco |
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| SeatL of theReal Academia Española | |
| In office 31 May 1885 – 23 January 1893 | |
| Preceded by | José Caveda y Nava [es] |
| Succeeded by | Zeferino González y Díaz Tuñón[a] |
José Zorrilla y Moral (Spanish pronunciation:[xoˈseθoˈriʎa]) was a Spanish poet anddramatist, who became National Laureate.
Zorrilla was born inValladolid to amagistrate in whomFerdinand VII placed special confidence. He was educated by theJesuits at the Real Seminario de Nobles inMadrid, wrote verses when he was twelve, became an enthusiastic admirer ofWalter Scott andChateaubriand, and took part in the school performances of plays byLope de Vega andCalderón de la Barca.[1]
In 1833, he was sent to study law at the university ofToledo, but after a year of idleness, he fled to Madrid, where he horrified the friends of his absolutist father by making violent speeches and by founding a newspaper that promptly was suppressed by the government. He narrowly escaped transportation to the Philippines, and spent the next few years in poverty.[1]
The death of thesatiristMariano José de Larra brought Zorrilla into notice. His elegiac poem, read at Larra's funeral in February 1837, introduced him to the leading men of letters. In 1837 he published a book of verses, mostly imitations ofAlphonse de Lamartine andVictor Hugo, which was so favourably received that he printed six more volumes within three years.[1]
After collaborating withAntonio García Gutiérrez on the playJuán Dondolo (1839), Zorrilla began his individual career as a dramatist withCada cual con su razón (1840), and during the next five years he wrote 22 plays, many of them extremely successful. HisCantos del trovador (1841), a collection of national legends written in verse, made Zorilla second only toJosé de Espronceda in popular esteem.[1]
National legends also supply the themes of his dramas, which Zorilla often constructed by adapting older plays that had fallen out of fashion. For example, inEl Zapatero y el Rey he recastsEl montanés Juan Pascual by Juan de la Hoz y Mota; inLa mejor Talon la espada he borrows fromAgustín Moreto y Cavana'sTravesuras del estudiante Pa-atoja. His famous playDon Juan Tenorio is a combination of elements fromTirso de Molina'sBurlador de Sevilla and fromAlexandre Dumas, père'sDon Juan de Marana (which itself derives fromLes Âmes du purgatoire byProsper Mérimée). However, plays likeSancho García,El Rey loco, andEl Alcalde Ronquillo are much more original. He considered his last play,Traidor, inconfeso y mártir (1845), to be his best play.[1]
Upon the death of his mother in 1847, Zorrilla left Spain. He resided for a while atBordeaux, and settled in Paris, where his incomplete poemGranada was published in 1852. In a fit of depression, he emigrated to America three years later, hoping, he claimed, thatyellow fever orsmallpox would kill him. During eleven years in Mexico he wrote very little. He returned to Spain in 1866, to find himself half-forgotten and considered old-fashioned.[1]
Friends helped Zorilla obtain a small post, but the republican minister later abolished it. He was always poor, especially for the 12 years after 1871. The publication of his autobiography,Recuerdos del tiempo viejo in 1880, did nothing to alleviate his poverty. Though his plays were still being performed, he received no money from them.[2]
Finally, in his old age, critics began to reappraise his work, and brought him new fame. He received a pension of 30,000 reales, a gold medal of honor from the Spanish Academy, and, in 1889, the title of National Laureate.[2] He died in Madrid on 23 January 1893.
In his early years, Zorrilla was known as an extraordinarily fast writer. He claimed he wroteEl Caballo del Rey Don Sancho in three weeks, and that he put togetherEl Puñal del Godo in two days. This may account for some of the technical faults—redundancy and verbosity—in his works. His plays often appeal to Spanish patriotic pride, and actors and audiences have enjoyed his effective dramaturgy.Don Juan Tenorio is his best-known work.[2]
One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in thepublic domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Zorrilla y Moral, José".Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 1043–1044.
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