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- José Echegaray y Eizaguirre
José Echegaray y Eizaguirre
- Personal information
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Surname: Echegaray y Eizaguirre
First name: José
Commonly known as: José Echegaray
Born: 19 April 1832, Madrid, Spain
Died: 14 September 1916
- Biography
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José Echegaray (1832-1916) was one of Spain’s most popular playwrights during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Aside from being a notable dramatist, he was also a statesman, engineer and mathematician. As a young man Echegaray studied engineering and mathematics. He was highly gifted in both subjects, and by the end of his life he had earned the reputation as Spain’s most important mathematician. Echegaray only really began to make his name as a dramatist in his thirties. His plays were hugely popular with audiences, with over 60 works being performed during his lifetime – many of them in his adopted town of Murcia. Critics, however, were sometimes dismissive of his tendency towards high melodrama. In 1904 Echegaray became the first Spaniard to win the Nobel Prize for Literature. This accolade reflected his popularity with the public, although it angered many writers who belonged to the Generation of 1898, who openly opposed Echegaray’s melodramatic style. Echegaray’s theatre is frequently compared with that of Jacinto Benavente (1866-1954) who is often viewed as having rejected the style of his predecessor and as having ‘reinvented’ theatre after Echegaray’s popularity had waned (for more on this, see the Out of the Wings entry on Jacinto Benavente).
- Themes
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José Echegaray’s themes and plots were popular with his audiences during his lifetime. As time has gone on, however, his work has (in some circles) come to be considered antiquated, in that it features black-and-white characters and melodramatic situations filled with unlikely or overwrought coincidences. Nevertheless, a number of scholars have questioned this view of his work, noting that his treatment of issues such as love, madness, honour and social hypocrisy is much more nuanced than some might believe. Even as far back as 1895, Hannah Lynch called attention to the dark and relatively complex depiction of love in his dramas, noting that: ‘Love with him is not the sentimental sighing of maids and boys […] but the great perplexed question of married infelicity and misunderstanding’ (Echegaray 1895: xxxiv). Similarly, in her comparative study of the dramatic themes of Echegaray and Pirandello, Wilma Newberry notes how he uses madness as a way to critique society and to dramatise the fate of characters driven to madness because they are ‘quixotically devoted to honesty’ – such as Lorenzo in O locura o santidad. She writes:
Both Echegaray and Pirandello have portrayed characters who are sent to an asylum in order to avoid ruining their lives and those of all around them because of their attempt to be completely honest. Bothplaywrights have also studied characters who lucidly decide to be insane rather than face life as it is. (1966: 124)
Newberry also points out Echegaray’s interest in exploring the creative process itself, featuring struggling artists and plays-within-plays in his works (1966: 127).
Echegaray, José. 1895. The Great Galeoto; Folly or Saintliness. Two Plays Done from the Verse of José Echegaray into English Prose, trans. Hannah Lynch. London, Lane, Boston, Lamson Wolfe and Company. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/greatgaleotofoll00eche [accessed January 2011]. Her text of The Great Galeoto is also available in: Angel Flores, ed. 1991. Great Spanish Plays in English Translation, pp. 297-362. New York, Dover (Online Publication)
Newberry, Wilma. 1966. ‘Echegaray and Pirandello’, PMLA, 81.1, 123-9
- Style
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Many of Echegaray’s plays are written in verse form, which enhances their melodramatic and romantic feel. His violent and dramatic plots often take precedence over character development (Echegaray 1895: x). While his style was sometimes criticised for its ‘exaggerated romanticism’, scholars point out that this was coupled with an interest in dramatising modern ideas and contemporary social problems; they liken this neo-romantic style to works by writers such as Ibsen (Newberry 1966: 123; Kennedy 1926).
Echegaray, José. 1895. The Great Galeoto; Folly or Saintliness. Two Plays Done from the Verse of José Echegaray into English Prose, trans. Hannah Lynch. London, Lane, Boston, Lamson Wolfe and Company. Available online at http://www.archive.org/details/greatgaleotofoll00eche [accessed January 2011]. Her text of The Great Galeoto is also available in: Angel Flores, ed. 1991. Great Spanish Plays in English Translation, pp. 297-362. New York, Dover (Online Publication)
Kennedy, Ruth Lee. 1926. ‘The Indebtedness of Echegaray to Ibsen’, The Sewanee Review, 34.4, 402-15
Newberry, Wilma. 1966. ‘Echegaray and Pirandello’, PMLA, 81.1, 123-9
- Plays in the database
- Useful reading and websites
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Kennedy, Ruth Lee. 1926. ‘The Indebtedness of Echegaray to Ibsen’, The Sewanee Review, 34.4, 402-15
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Newberry, Wilma. 1966. ‘Echegaray and Pirandello’, PMLA, 81.1, 123-9
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Entry written by Gwynneth Dowling. Last updated on 21 February 2011.
