Life & works of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer
The second half of the 19th century is marked by the Post-romanticism movement, of which Gustavo Bécquer is the main writer. Post-romanticism poetry is more intimate and emotional, and it’s influenced by german poetry (specifically Heinrich Heine) and the new interest in Spanish folkloric poetry. Narrative falls in favor of poetry, and there’s less rhetoric and more lyricism, with the mains topics being love, passion and beauty. The homogeneity present in Romanticism is forgotten, and Post-romanticism acts as the transition between Romanticism and Realism.
Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer was born in Seville in 1836. His father was a painter, and his side of the family came from a Flemish aristocratic family, who settled in Andalusia during the 16th century. Bécquer had a brother, Valeriano, and both of them were influenced by his father to take up painting. However, Bécquer’s father died when he was only 5. At 10 he entered the “Colegio de Náutica de San Telmo” (Nautical School of San Telmo), in Seville, where his teacher is a disciple of Alberto Lista, Francisco Rodríguez Zapata.
During his time at the school in Seville he meets his best friend, Narciso Campillo. In 1847, Becquers mother dies, making Valeriano and him orphans, but their aunt María Bastida takes them in. The Nautical School shut down and Gustavo Bécquer didn’t quite know what to do with his life. He moved in with his godmother, Manuela Monahay, who was quite wealthy and had a good library. During his stay there, Bécquer became an avid reader.
He started his painting studies in the one of his uncle’s workshops, but he convinced him to take up his studies and paid for his Latin courses. Bécquer moved to Madrid in 1854 with the wish of becoming a great writer, but things didn’t go as planned and he’s left feeling quite disappointed. However, he perseveres and writes for a living, mostly comedies and zarzuelas. These works he signs as Gustavo García, and in them he satirizes the bourgeois lifestyle in Madrid. In 1857 he’s infected with tuberculosis, an illness which will accompany him until his death. At this time he was working in the “Dirección de Bienes Nacionales”, but it’s said he lost his job when his boss caught him drawing.
His pessimism keeps growing, and only with the help of his patroness and his brother is he able to overcome it. It’s also during this year when he takes up an ambitious project about Spanish Christian art, combining religious ideals, architecture, and history. However, only the first volume of this would ever be published, under the name “Historia de los Templos de España”. In 1858 he met Josefa Espín, and through her he met her sister, the opera singer Julia Espín, who’d later become his muse.
Bécquer fell in love but the relationship never occurred because she’d had an upper-class upbringing and wasn’t happy with Bécquer’s bohemian lifestyle. He would later fall in love with Elisa Guillén, but she grew tired of him and left him.