Pedro Antonio de Alarcón and 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 newspapers The Echo of the West Y The whip, satirical tint. In addition to this, he was a prominent member of the Liberal Union party and came to occupy important public positions, including counselor of state to King Alfonso XII..
His literary works have traits of both Realism or Costumbrismo, as well as late Romanticism. His novels are especially famous The Three-Cornered Hat (1874) and The scandal (1875), as well as his book of chronicles Diary of a witness to the war in Africa (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..
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Pedro Antonio de Alarcón y Ariza was born in the town of Guadix, Granada province, on March 10, 1833. He was the fourth son of Don Pedro de Alarcón and 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 Pedro Antonio Joaquín Melitón de Alarcón y Ariza. His family, of noble descent, had lost a large part 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 in the Faculty of Law of the university of this city. However, he abandoned his studies and later, on the advice of his father, he 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 The Echo of Commerce. 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 theatrical pieces.
After the season in Madrid, he traveled to Cádiz, where he interacted with the young artists and writers who were members of the association. Grenadine rope, liberal trend. In 1854 he directed The Echo of the West, combative newspaper with which he entered both journalism and political struggles.
Later he returned to Madrid where he founded The whip, another sarcastic newspaper with a marked anti-monarchical and anti-clerical position. On The whip wrote his most scathing articles with the collaboration of intellectuals such as Domingo de la Vega and Juan Martínez Villega.
After these beginnings in scathing journalism, he published his first novel, entitled The end of Norma. He also did the same with a series of stories, which came to light in important Madrid newspapers such as The West, The America, Spanish Picturesque Weekly, The Universal Museum, 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 storyteller in the literary environment of Madrid..
Although part of the critics celebrated his work, he also had his detractors, more due to the clash of political tendencies than because of the quality of his writing.
On November 5, 1857, his first theatrical work was premiered, The prodigal son. This piece also obtained 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.
In 1859, after these successful beginnings in literature and dramaturgy, Pedro Antonio de Alarcón volunteered as a volunteer 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 The Universal Museum. They were later 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.
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 journal entitled Madrid to Naples.
Some years later, in 1870 he published his only collection of poems, entitled Serious and humorous poetry. In 1873 he did the same with a third compendium of travel chronicles, La Alpujarra: sixty leagues on horseback preceded by six by stagecoach, in which descriptions and stories about the province of Granada were collected.
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 Politics 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 infancy and four more during youth. His only surviving daughter was Carmen de Alarcón Contreras.
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 ambassador to Norway.
His support for Alfonso XII, nicknamed "The Peacemaker" and his subsequent ascent to the throne of this, earned him to be appointed councilor of state in 1875.
In 1874 it was published The Three-Cornered Hat, one of his most recognized and successful realistic novels. 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 was published, The scandal. This moralizing account showed more conservative and religious ideas of the author, already in the 1940s and far from his years as a young protester. Many critics believe that it is a partly autobiographical work.
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 of this act, entitled Morals and Art, 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 The ball boy. Shortly after, in 1881 it came to light Captain Venom and a year later The Prodigal. All these novels of manners joined his career as a portraitist in Spanish society..
From 1880 he did not leave Madrid any more. In this city he spent long hours at 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 republish any longer works, except for Travel in Spain. This piece was a travel diary written by the author years before and finally published in 1883.
In 1884 he wrote the article History of my books, a kind of account of his writing career with anecdotes about the writing process of his most famous works. It appeared in the famous Madrid magazine The Spanish and American Enlightenment.
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 number 92 Atocha street, as a result of diffuse encephalitis.
His remains rest in the cemetery of the Sacramental de San Justo, San Millán and Santa Cruz, 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..
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..
Some of its scholars can even intuit a certain influence of Edgar Allan Poe's crime novels in certain stories of the author, such as in The nail.
His published novels were: The end of Norma (1855), The Three-Cornered Hat (1874), The scandal (1875), The boy with the ball (1880), Captain Venom (1881) and The prodigal (1882).
Of all his works, the most famous were The Three-Cornered Hat Y The scandal.
The first one has Lucas and Frasquita as protagonists, 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, it 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 rejection and plunged into deep internal contradictions for falling in love with a married lady.
The author's short stories, which were published in newspapers during the 1850s and early 1860s, were compiled into three volumes entitled Love stories (1881), National cartoons (1881) and Unbelievable narratives (1882).
The first includes titles such as The nail, The Commander, Natural novel, The ideal beauty, The last skull, Symphony, TIC Tac… , Why was she blonde?, among others. On National cartoons stand out The Mayor Chickadee, 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 at Spitzberg, The friend of death, Moors and Christians, The tall woman, What can be heard from a Prado chair, I am, I have and I want Y Black eyes.
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 narratives about 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 Madrid to Naples (1861), La Alpujarra: sixty leagues on horseback preceded by six by stagecoach (1873) and Travel in Spain (1883).
His journalistic articles were compiled and published in 1871 under the title Things that were. He also wrote History of my books (1874), Literary and artistic judgments (1883), containing his famous speech Morals and Art Y Latest writings (1891), which came to light the same year of his death.
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