Spanish Short Fiction

Introduction

The Spanish language came into existence during the Arabic occupation of the Iberian Peninsula, and the first short fiction that appeared in what is now known as Spain evolved from the tradition of both the native Hispano and the Arabic cultures’ penchant for oral storytelling. These early oral didactic tales were meant to teach the populace proper social behaviors. The evolving kingdoms that would eventually coalesce into modern Spain had various centers of power. Still, by the time Castile unified the country in 1492, most short fiction was written in Castilian (now referred to as Spanish).

Early in Spain’s short fiction development, an important genre appeared. The picaresque style would remain embedded in Spanish short fiction for centuries. This is a form of biting, personal humor with an underpinning of social or psychological critique. Since Spain tolerated little criticism of the authoritarian regimes that dominated society throughout its long history, censors often overlooked this indirect manner of condemnation. Throughout centuries of development, Spain’s short fiction evolved and embraced many forms, each affected by chronological realities. Across almost a millennium, the advance of short stories, fables, novellas, and other short fiction paralleled the change in Spanish norms and society.

Early Formative Period

In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, itinerant storytellers spoke from public plazas throughout the Iberian Peninsula. By the fourteenth century, the didactic tales of these mesters de juglarias, as they were known, were written down. The works were generally collections of short fables that ended with specific moral lessons that instructed the citizens how to conduct their lives in an acceptable manner for the Catholic-based society over which the royal family presided. The earlier writings, such as the Libro de Exemplos (1335) in the fourteenth century, were collections of fables, some with humorous subplots. By the sixteenth century, the Spanish picaresque, or picaroon, tales appeared, with their sharp wit and not-so-subtle critique of certain societal expectations and practices. In the seventeenth century, short stories, novellas, and interludes (short stories acted out on stage as entertainment during the intermission of a play) had become a highly skilled form of literature.

Didactic Instructional Tales

Works such as the Libro de los exemplos del Conde Lucanor y de Patronio (1328-1335; Count Lucanor: Or, The Fifty Pleasant Stories of Patronio, 1868), written by Don Juan Manuel (the nephew of King Alfonso X), appear to be a straightforward collection of short stories penned to provide moral guidelines. The format of the work is that of a wise counselor who gives advice to the Duke of Lucanor. This is done in a series of short stories. Each tale ends with the duke learning how bad behavior should be avoided to live a good life with the grace of God. Some tales are reworks of previously existing fables, but many are original works. Some go beyond contemporary norms of the times and present sexual themes that previously were not acceptable for public expression. Apparently, the fact that the nephew of the king was the author permitted this to be overlooked by the Church’s and the royal family’s censors.

Juan Ruiz (c. 1283-1350) penned the Libro de Buen Amor (1330, expanded 1334; The Book of Good Love, 1933). This is another collection of short stories, often in rhyme. The ribald approach used by Ruiz reveals a style of literature that was to stay with Spain up into the twenty-first century. His tales of lust are full of comical and surprising twists that entertained his readers and provoked the Church and crown to the extent that he was incarcerated for a time. An example of writing that offended the authorities is a tale that presents an older man as a go-between for a man seeking the pleasures of a woman who fears the dreadful outcome if their love affair becomes public knowledge. She is advised to give in to her impulses, which have disastrous results. The tales, although cunningly humorous, also reveal a conviction of most Spanish citizens, that is, a strong adherence to Catholic teachings but a lack of faith in the all-too-human frailty of the clergy. Priests are presented trysting with women of their parishes.

Novela Picaresca

The anonymously written La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades, 1553 (English translation, 1576) is a novella that epitomizes the picaresque form of Spanish short fiction. It presents a new form of protagonist, the pícaro (Spanish for "scoundrel" or "rouge"). Each chapter presents another tale of a hapless man who suffers because of the unfairness of Spanish society during the period. The work appears just as the Spanish Inquisition is starting and is soon on the list of banned literature because of its numerous references to the hypocrisy of priests and the Church in general. However, keeping with Spanish norms, it criticizes the human aspects of the religion, not the teachings of the Church. The work was extremely popular and well-accepted throughout Europe, where it was not banned. This is because of the brilliant and hilarious treatment of farcical standards within contemporary society. The picaroon novel lives on in the works of many cultures, with Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) among the examples.

Novelas ejemplares (1613; Exemplary Novels, 1846), by Miguel de Cervantes, continues with the picaroon style in a collection of twelve short stories. Although Cervantes is more recognized for his brilliant picaresque novel El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615; The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, 1612-1620; better known as Don Quixote de la Mancha), this collection of tales follows the style first presented in La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades. It chronicles the misfortunes of hapless individuals who are unjustly caught up in hypocritical and almost impossible situations that Cervantes presents concerning contemporary Spain. The seventeenth century ends with Spain’s short fiction having evolved from didactic, moralizing tales that mirrored authoritative standards to biting, ribald stories that humorously and decisively critique Spain’s authoritarian institutions.

Middle Expansive Period

As in much of contemporary Europe, the eighteenth century saw a change in Spanish short fiction. The problems of Spain and the surrounding continent required a more serious approach to literature. The church, society, and family structures were viewed as under pressure, and the short fiction authors responded with a more somber tone. Spain was seeking a worldview of itself, and detailed tales of self-evaluation appeared during the eighteenth century. This included Romanticism, Costumbrism, and naturalism. Nineteenth-century Spain was marked by fierce political and philosophical differences. The conservative faction that backed the Church, royalty, and traditional values was opposed by the liberal forces of modernization and rational thought brought about by the Enlightenment period in Europe and the prevailing scientific thought in France, Germany, and England.

Romanticism

By the end of the eighteenth century, Spain’s short fiction writers were rebelling against the freethinking and libertarian ideas that the French Revolution and other European events had brought into the literature of Spain. As opposed to most of those in Europe, many Spanish writers were attempting to repress popular progressive ideas, and they wrote in favor of a strengthened and purified monarchy, society, and art. The reasons and outcomes of irrational fears, actions, and situations were examined from a generally subjective viewpoint. This perspective often incorporated nationalistic and religious values, with a pronounced emphasis on the return to Catholic and patriarchal family ideals.

In Spain, two short fiction authors epitomize the aforementioned features of Romanticism. In Mariano José de Larra’s Yo quiero ser cómico (1833), his expertise in descriptive journalism is combined with detailed short prose that provides the reader with a tale that projects a subtly authoritarian defense of past romance epochs. Larra’s grief over what he perceived as Spain’s failure to embrace its past led him to commit suicide. Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer’s collection of short tales, Leyendas, also links Spain’s glorious and legendary past to a perceived reacquisition of noble, historical values. The stories, written from 1858 to 1864, were replete with references to exaggerated religious meanings and outright supernatural combinations of Catholicism and its benefits to Spanish society.

Costumbrismo

Costumbrismo is a direct outgrowth of Spanish Romantic literature. Its intended message is explicitly simple but includes detailed descriptions of a nostalgic past or a longing to return to the idyllic countryside of nonexistent pastoral history. The emphasis is more on the form of living, or lifestyles, rather than on the overall societal values. Ramón de Mesonero Romanos was the most recognized short-fiction author in the last decade of the eighteenth century in Spain. He considered his tales, published between 1808 and 1850, to be anti-Romanticism.

Naturalism

Naturalism grew out of the Costumbrismo style of a more objective form of presenting Spain and its cultures. Naturalism left behind the surreal, exaggerated, and subjective explanations of life and society. Instead, writers sought to elucidate in somewhat scientific methodologies a world where society and individuals could be understood by their hereditary social situation. Charles Darwin had convinced much of the world that nature’s progression was scientifically and logically understandable. Naturalism’s authors in Spain extended this belief to include human characters. The subjects of this newly derived critique of human reality included themes that were taboo in earlier Catholic Spain. The areas of intense, often frank examinations included sexuality, corruption, violence, degradation, prejudice, feminist perspectives, and poverty.

Emilia Pardo Bazán is generally credited with bringing naturalism to Spanish literature. In her short stories, including “La cristiana” (1890), “Cuentos de amor” (1898), “Arco Iris” (1895), and “Temprano y con Sol” (1897), as well as in her novels she wrote of the lives of the commoners in Spain. These tales included detailed descriptions of life and what she considered was the natural way of life. Many of these stories could be considered instructive of what society expected of working and middle-class citizens. Irony is employed as an example of what happens when members of an orderly society fail to adopt accepted norms.

Benito Pérez Galdós was one of Spain’s most prolific and respected writers of the late nineteenth century. He believed that Spain must honestly review its past. With a sharp eye for regional hypocrisy and self-serving religious fanaticism, he meticulously detailed and derided historical arrogance. From 1873 until 1912, Galdós wrote Episodios nacionales, 1873-1912, more than forty short historical novellas, the most famous being Fortunata y Jacinta (1886-1887; Fortunata and Jacinta: Two Stories of Married Women, 1973).

Modern Retrospective Period

Spain moved into the modern period (late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries) without having experienced a modernizing era. When Spain lost its overseas colonies in 1898, it fell into a sort of national depression, with much of the population attempting to embrace past glory. While Europe and the United States modernized industry and technology, Spain spent the first part of the twentieth century in an extended debate (violent at times), trying to decide how to deal with a new world order that left Spain comparatively humbled. This division was not resolved until the Spanish Civil War of 1936, when Francisco Franco assumed dictatorial power. When he died in 1975, Spain swiftly transformed into a modern twentieth-century society. Its short-fiction writers increasingly looked toward the future.

Modernism and the Generation of 1898

Modernism is the philosophy of a social movement that grew out of the realities of the tragic events that befell Spain in 1898 when the Americans defeated the Spanish Armada. Spain lost its final overseas possessions: Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the Philippines. After four hundred years of domination of world marketing and culture, Spain faced a severely reduced economy and a humiliating reality check. Out of this psychological void came the Generation of 1898, a group of predominantly young writers. Many were influenced by Don Francisco Giner, a university professor and founder of the Free Education Institution, who believed Spain could be saved only by embracing a modern education and rejecting the traditions that led to national failure. The Generation of 1898 produced short fiction that placed blame for the loss of colonies and prestige on inept and outdated government. They presented a newly invigorated viewpoint on the Iberian landscape and a modern interpretation of traditional Spanish artistry. As a result of the Spanish Civil War, this literary movement was suppressed from 1939 until 1975.

Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo is the most recognized author of short fiction of the modernist movement. He was born in Bilbao, Spain, in 1864. His prolific writing spanned most of the modernist period, starting with the Generation of 1898 and ending with his death in 1936. His writing is influenced by the positivism and rationalism philosophies sweeping Europe. His novella San Manuel Bueno, mártir (1931; Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr, 1954) epitomized his belief that intelligence and God could coexist, but not in the hypocritical form that the first half of the twentieth century had produced in Spain. Other short stories, such as “El amor que asalta” (1913), also presented this dichotomy of thought that would soon lead to civil war in Spain. Shortly before his death, he personally defied the self-appointed defenders of a long-past Spain. The wife of Spain’s new dictator personally intervened to save his life.

Late Twentieth Century and Twenty-First Century

The death of Franco in 1975 left a void in the cultural direction Spain would pursue. In the early 1960s, the Western world began experiencing a liberation movement across the artistic spectrum. Spain’s artists were also free to experiment with modern concepts. The writers of short fiction quickly developed independent styles. Each writer could express individual ideas without the necessity of explanations or political allegiances. In the new democracy, storytelling found new popularity. Spaniards were able to read and enjoy whatever they wished. The new freedoms created a need for short fiction to entertain and enlighten. An expectation for clever angles, themes, and twists and turns within popular tales emboldened authors to reach for previously unimagined literary levels. Although the works impart a new feeling of Spanish textual freedom, they are not limited to Iberian themes. For example, Magical Realism, or the use of absurd fantasy as commonplace reality, has been adopted from Latin American short-fiction writers. One of the repeating themes in many works is the self-conscious examination of human absurdities.

Postmodernist Female Writers

With a few notable exceptions, women authors had been marginalized in Spanish literature. The situation had been no better for women who wrote short fiction. The prevailing attitude had been that women should accept traditional roles in a traditional and, some would say, backward-facing, male-dominated society. This changed drastically in the last quarter of the twentieth century. Not only were women authors of short fiction accepted, but they excelled and largely led the postmodernist short-fiction genre in Spain. The themes used in the works are eclectic. They include self-assured eroticism, male hyperbole, women’s evolving roles, birth, death, fear, depression, greed, and numerous forms of fantasy and real situations.

Laura Freixas published two collections of short stories, El asesino en la muñeca (1988) and Cuentos a los cuarenta (2001), and contributed to an anthology, Cuentos de amigas (Women Friends) (2009). Her feminist viewpoint is evident in the way the stories portray women who question the acceptance of mediocrity and doubt the validity of society's rules. From 2009 to 2017, she was the first president of the association Clásicas y Modernas for gender equality in culture. She released It Wasn't Supposed to Happen to Me in 2019, calling it her best work yet.

Mercedes Abad’s collections of tales demonstrate an uncanny ability to project unrestrained eroticism to new levels in short fiction. She published Ligeros libertinajes sabáticos (1986), Felicidades conyugales (1989), Soplando al viento (1995), and Amigos y fantasmas (2004). Abad uses Magical Realism in the tales, with fantasy characters that appear real but are chronologically and physically impossible. Although the texts are not complicated, the reader is forced to contemplate their notions of sexuality.

Esther Tusquets (1936-2012) is another Spanish writer who took on feminist themes in her short stories. Her tales present the reader with feminine consciousness that finds form in psychosexual eroticism. She penned numerous stand-alone stories and two collections of short stories: Relatos eróticos (1990) and La niña lunática y otros cuentos (1996).

Maruja Torres began writing short fiction in the waning years of the Franco regime. Her background in journalism sometimes led to her being labeled as polemic and even anti-Semitic (a charge she strongly denies). Her stories reflect women in impossible political situations. The works appear as independent short stories published by other modern Spanish writers. They include Desaparecida (1995), La garrapata (1998), and El velo y las lágrimas (1999). Her later works include Fácil de matar (2011), Sin entrañas (2012), and Diez veces siete (2014).

Other female short fiction writers of the twenty-first century are featured in the anthology Rainy Days - Días de lluvia: Short Stories by Contemporary Spanish Women Writers (2018), including Alice Munro, Quim Monzâo, and Cristina Fernâandez Cubas.

Postmodern Male Writers

The creativeness of male postmodern writers in Spain also showed a return to free expression that female postmodern authors were enjoying. The works are far-ranging, including such themes as macabre death, age in relation to sexual prowess, space within societal constraints, historical follies, and existential angst. These authors have left behind the repressed years of the preceding century in Spain, but, as opposed to the confident feminist tales noted above, the male stories seem to lack spontaneity or a literary spark.

Robert Saladrigas Riera is a prolific Catalan (one of the major language groups in Spain) short-fiction author. His works reveal a traditional, almost historical nostalgia. However, this is not a longing for past political supremacy but rather an attempt to reestablish the value of the regional literatures of the Catalan region of Spain. He has many recognized works, including a collection of historical tales, Boires (1970), and his novella El sol de la tarda (1992; The Afternoon Sun, 2009).

Javier Marías’s works often depict fear, mostly by means of ghosts that appear in the works. He does not use Magical Realism, as the fantasy people in his tales are not considered normal; they are frightening ghosts. His tales are to arouse fright in the reader, not to juxtapose reality with fantasy in a confusing manner. His collection Mientras ellas duermen (1990; While the Women Are Sleeping, 2010) includes many of his short stories from 1968 until 2009. His other short works include Mala índole (1996; New Directions, 2010) and Cuando fui mortal (1996; When I Was Mortal, 2000).

José María Merino has published more than ten collections of short stories, including Cuentos del reino secreto (1982), Cincuenta cuentos y una fábula: Obra breve, 1982-1997 (1997), and La glorieta de los fugitivos (2007). Many of his tales feature detailed descriptions of the rural countryside in Spain, drawing upon Spain’s long history of nostalgic immersion in landscape as culture. As with other postmodern short-fiction authors in Spain, his projection is one of a past that can balance with the future. It is not overtly didactic in nature.

Conclusions

A final critique of the history of short fiction in Spain must await an unbiased historical viewpoint. However, modern Spain continues to embrace an eclectic mixture of short fiction, with no end in sight for the surprisingly uncanny and creative works being penned. Spanish tales, fables, stories, and novellas have come full circle in the centuries they have been around to please Iberian and global readers. The early medieval storytellers' humorous, irreverent, lusty, clever, and astonishing tales were later overtaken by political realities that brought about censorship, political correctness, prejudice, and suppression of literary expression. Nevertheless, modern short fiction in Spain includes a healthy return to the astounding creativity of past generations. Not all of Spain’s short fiction is enlightening, humorous, or relevant, but it is entertaining and thought-provoking. Some authors of this short fiction include Elvira Navarro, Sofía Rhei, Carlos Ruiz Zafon, Antonio Muñoz Molina, and Rosa Montero, the first woman to receive the Manuel del Arco Prize. Ruiz Zafón's works have been translated into more than fifty languages in more than forty countries, and before his untimely death in 2020, he completed his popular four-book Cemetery of Forgotten Books series and two short stories "Rosa de fuego" (2012; "The Rose of Fire") and "Two-Minute Apocalypse" (2015).

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