144 UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO STUDIES 



intimate and personal writers who lEind their inspiration in their 

 own hearts and who certainly are not easily to be imitated. 



In Spain the history of the novel in recent times is wholly different. 

 Those writers who have been most successful have paid little atten- 

 tion to the passing fashions of the day, but have followed the old 

 and time-honored traditions of Spanish literature. The romantic 

 movement spent its force mainly in lyric poetry and the drama; 

 the novel of the time was bulky, as were most romantic productions, 

 but almost negligible in quality. The real beginnings of the modern 

 Spanish novel are found in a wholly different direction, in the descrip- 

 tions of local customs; and this in turn originated in the regional 

 pride which has always been and is so strong a trait of Spanish char- 

 acter. Feman Caballero and Estebanez Calderon displayed their 

 aft'ection for their native Andalusia by writing about the manners of 

 its rural inhabitants, a thing that Cervantes had done before them. 

 Mesonero Romanes and Larra portrayed the ways of Madrid. These 

 writers (though Fernan Caballero persistently attempted the novel) 

 were hardly more than literary genre painters. Later men and 

 women employed a larger canvas for more dramatic recitals. Jose 

 Maria de Pereda, the montanes, still is more intent upon his native 

 land than upon his stories. His novels {Don Gonzalo Gonzalez de la 

 Gonzalera, Sotileza, Penas arriba) are hardly more than expanded 

 escenas montanesas, detaihng, now enthusiastically, now with frank 

 pessimism, the local habits of his countrymen in the mountainous 

 region back of the northern coast city, Santander, which was his 

 home. The Galician lady, Emilia Pardo Bazan, won fame with 

 accounts of that northwest corner of the Iberian Peninsula, Galicia, 

 with its soft wooded hills, green vales and all-pervading melancholy. 

 Armando Palacio Valdes is more than a painter — he creates character; 

 but the background of his novels is always clearly defined and based 

 upon careful and loving study of the different parts of Spain. More 

 than half his novels {Marta y Maria, el idilio de un enfermo, el ciiarto 

 poder, la aldea perdida, etc.) center about the Asturian district which 

 was his home. But his sympathy is wide, and some of his best 

 works display unequaled insight into the manners of other parts of 



