Our navigation bar is loading . . .

Subscribe to JCSM's weekly inspirational message podcast!Write on Jason Gastrich's Facebook page!Add JCSM as a friend to your MySpace account!Watch Jason Gastrich's videos on YouTube!
Read, respond and subscribe to Jason Gastrich's blog!

Designate a portion of your next eBay auction to JCSM through eBay's Mission Fish program!JCSM's Top 1000 Christian Sites - Free Traffic Sharing Service!
Jesus Christ Saves Ministries

Helping San Diego, California and beyond since 1997

Please type your email and let us encourage you!

 
        Search jcsm.org now!

Click here and add this page to your favorites!

Return to the JCSM Study Center!

Encyclopedia Britannica



ZORRILLA Y MORAL, JOSE (1817-1893)

This article appears in Volume V28, Page 1044 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: YAK-ZYM
ZORRILLA Y MORAL, JOSE (1817-1893) , Spanish poet and dramatist, son of a
magistrate
  in whom Ferdinand VII. placed
special
  confidence, was born at Valladolid on the 21st of February 1817. He was educated by the Jesuits at the Real Seminario de Nobles in Madrid, wrote verses when he was twelve, became an enthusiastic admirer of Scott and Chateaubriand, and took part in the school performances of plays by Lope de Vega and Calderon. In 1833 he was sent to read law at the University of Toledo, but, after a year of idleness, he fled to Madrid, where he horrified the friends of his absolutist father by making violent speeches and by founding a newspaper which was promptly suppressed by the government. He narrowly escaped transportation to the Philippines, and passed the next few years in poverty. The death of the satirist Larra brought Zorrilla into notice. His elegiac poem, declaimed at Larra's funeral in February 1837, served as an introduction to the leading men of letters. In 1837 he published a book of verses, mostly imitations of Lamartir.e and Hugo, which was so favourably received that he printed six more volumes within three years. His subjects are treated with fluency and grace, but the carelessness which disfigures much of his
work
  is prominent in these juvenile poems. After collaborating with Garcia Gutierrez, in a piece entitled Juan Dkndolo (1839) Zorrilla began his individual career as a dramatist with Carla coal con su razen (184o), and during the following five years he wrote twenty-two plays, many of them extremely successful. His Cantos del trovador (1841), a collection of national legends versified with infinite spirit, showed a decided advance in kill, and secured for the author the place next to Espronceda in popular esteem. National legends also
supply
  the themes of his dramas, though in this department Zorrilla somewhat compromised his reputation for originality by adapting older plays which had fallen out of fashion. For example, in El Zapatero y el Rey he recasts El montanes Juan Pascual by Juan de la Hoz y Mota; in La mejor razen la espada he borrows from Moreto's Travesuras del estudiante Pantoja; in Don Juan Tenorio he adapts from Tirso de Molina's Burlador de Sevilla and from the elder Dumas's Don Juan de Marana (which itself derives from Les rimes du purgatoire of Prosper Merimee). But his rearrangements usually contain
original
  elements, and in Sancho Garcia, El Rey loco, and El Alcalde Ronquillo he apparently owes little to any predecessor. The last and (as he himself believed) the best of his plays is Traidor, inconfeso y mkrtir (1845). Upon the death of his mother in 1847 Zorrilla left Spain, resided for a while at Bordeaux,, and settled in Paris, where his incomplete Granada, a striking poem of gorgeous local colour, was published in 1852. In a fit of depression, the causes of which are not known, he emigrated to America three years later, hoping, as he says, that yellow fever or small-pox would carry him off. During eleven years spent in
Mexico
  he produced little, and that little was of no merit. He returned in 1866, to find himself a half-forgotten classic. His old fertility was gone, and new standards of taste were coming into fashion. A small post, obtained for him 'through the influence of Jovellar and Canovas del Castillo, was abolished by the republican
minister. He was always poor, and for some twelve years after 1871 he was in the direst straits. The law of copyright was not retrospective, and, though some of his plays made the fortunes of managers, they brought him nothing. In his untrustworthy autobiography, Recuerdos del tiempo viejo (1880), he complained of this. A pension of 30,000 reales secured him from want in his old age, and the reaction in his favour became an apotheosis. In 1885 the Spanish Academy, which had elected him a member many years before, presented him with a gold medal of honour, and in 1889 he was publicly crowned at Granada as the national laureate. He died at Madrid on the 23rd of January 1893.
Zorrilla is so intensely Spanish that it is difficult for foreign critics to do him jifstice. It is certain that the extraordinary rapidity of his methods seriously injured his
work
 . He declares that he wrote El Caballo del Rey Don Sancho in three weeks, and that he put together El Punal del Godo (which, like La Calentura, owes much to Southey) in two days; if so, his deficiencies need no other explanation. An improvisator with the characteristic faults of redundance and verbosity, he wrote far too much, and in most of his numbers there are numerous technical flaws. Yet the richness of his imagery, the
movement
 , fire and variety of his versification, will preserve some few of his poems in the anthologies. His appeal to patriotic
pride
 , his accurate dramatic instinct, together with the fact that he invariably gives at least one of his characters a most effective acting part, have enabled him to hold the stage. It is by Don Juan Tenorio, the play of which he thought so meanly, that Zorrilla will be best remembered. (J. F.-K.)


End of Article: ZORRILLA Y MORAL, JOSE (1817-1893)


If you wish, you can link directly to this article.
<a href="http://jcsm.org/StudyCenter/Encyclopedia/YAK_ZYM/ZORRILLA_Y_MORAL_JOSE_1817_189.html">
ZORRILLA Y MORAL, JOSE (1817-1893)
</a>
(Previous)
ZOOLOGY (from Gr. Nov, a living thing, and ?byo... 		(Next)
ZOSIMUS

 


 

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries

The JCSM Study CenterAmerica's Christian FoundationSkeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and ExplainedNKJV Web Hosting and Services
JCSM's Sermons, Debates and the Bible on MP3The Online Christ-Centered MinistriesDo You Have A Web Site?  Your Ad Could Be Here!Seminary Notes and PapersThe Picturesque Photo Albums


Jesus Christ Saves Ministries, P.O. Box 70696, Pasadena, CA 91117

JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Copyright © 1997-present.



Kingdom Debt Solutions - Be Debt Free! Sport Logos - Quality Athletic Equipment The JCSM Study Center Your Ad Could Be Here! Launch A Successful Internet Organization or Business! Learn Guitar, Bass, or Piano in San Diego county!

You can advertise your site right here!

Free & Cheap Cell Phones  |  Cheap Long Distance Phone Service Carriers  |  Talk America Local Phone Service  |  Ztel & MCI - Unlimited Long Distance
Compare Cell Phone Plans & Companies  |  International Calling Cards & Prepaid Phone Cards  |  Voice Over IP Broadband Internet Phone Service  |  Wireless Phone Plans & Cheap Cell Phones

Dr. Jason Gastrich

Jason Gastrich, Ph.D.

 

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries is directed by Dr. Jason Gastrich. It was founded in 1997 and it exists to bring people into a life-changing and productive relationship with Jesus Christ. JCSM offers over 200,000 free web pages, including its weekly inspirational emails that have been sent continuously for over a decade.

Jesus Christ Saves Ministries
P.O. Box 9297
San Diego, CA  92169
1-877-850-3878 or Email

JCSM is a 501(c)(3), non-profit organization. Copyright © 1997-2009.

_____________________________________________________________________________

Online First Aid and CPR Certification  .  The Online Christ Centered Ministries  .  The Skeptic's Annotated Bible: Corrected and Explained  .  The Inerrancy Discussion Board  .  Free Email Accounts  .  Home Equity Loans  .  JasonGastrich.com  .  The Missions, Apologetics, and Creation Bible Conference  .  Young Earth Creation Science  .  San Diego Music Lessons  .  10,000 Wise Quotes and Spiritual Sayings  .  Gastrich.net  .  Maximizing the Internet: 12 Keys to Success  .  Louisiana Baptist University  .  NKJV Web Hosting and Services  .  Michael Newdow  .  San Diego Soccer Training  . Christian Guitar Lessons  .  Jesus Christ Saves Ministries  .  Eternal Security