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El Museo Universal (1857-69): Mirror of Transition Years

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

John E. Englekirk*
Affiliation:
Tulane University, New Orleans 18, La.

Extract

Students of Spanish literature of the first half of the 19th century still stand indebted to Georges Le Gentil for his partial analysis of and index to thirty-one literary journals published in Madrid between 1803 and 1849. More recently additional light has been thrown on this period through the publication of complete indices for a number of reviews not covered by Le Gentil as well as for several included in his survey. Thus far, however, there has been no planned approach to duplicate the above efforts for the critical transition years, roughly 1850–70, from the decline of romanticism to the triumph of realism. The CSIC series to date includes only two reviews that afford but partial coverage for these years: the above-cited Semanario pintoresco espan̄ol (1836–57) and Educación pintoresca (1857–59). The latter, moreover, is of scant literary significance.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1955

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References

1 Les revues littéraires de l'Espagne, pendant la première motić du XIXe siècle (Paris, 1909).

2 “Colceción de Índices de Publicaciones Periódicas,” ed. Joaquín de Entramlmsaguas and publ. by the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Madrid. The following Madrid reviews were partially covred by Le Gentil: El artista (1835-36), Semanario pintoresco espinol (1836-57), and El liceo artístico y literario (1838). Other Madrid reviews for the period not covred by Le Gentil are: No mc olvides (l837-3S), El alba (1838-39), El arpa del creyente (1842), El reflejo (1843), and El cínfe (1845), and La Palma (Palma, 1840-41).

3 See Eugenio Harlzenbusch (A puntes para un catálogo de periódicos madrilenos desde cl ano 1661 al 1870, Madrid, 1894), who compiled a tolal of some 1371 names of “periódicos madrilenos” for the years 1850-69 inclusive. Judging by tities alone, 150 of these could possibly be classified as broadly literary, even though many of them might fall more appropriately under such headings as “"satirical,” “juvenile,” “musical.” Furthermore, more than half of this number are listed by name only, without any specific data to confirm that they actually survived even the “prospectus" stage … ese pueblo por tantos títulos singular, concentrado en sí mismo, y denigrado o mal conocido por los demás, no ha tenido los intérpretes que conviniera para.

4 The Hemeroteca Municipal (Madrid) set is complete and in excellent condition. Volume XII (1868) and a disturbing number of pages from other volumes are missing from the set in the Biblioteca Nacional. There is a good set at the University of Toronto and, according to the Union List of Serials (2nd ed.), complete sets are available in this country at the following university libraries: Arizona, Dartmouth, Kansas, Northwestern, and Ohio State.

José Gaspar was the founder and editor until his death. He was followed by Abelardo de Carlos in January 1869. Hartzenbusch (op. cit., p. 173) describes the review as “importante publication, que recuerda el Semanario pinloresco espanol, pero muy mejorado en la parte artistica, lo cual nada tiene de particular, habiéndose adelantado tanto después en el util arte del grabado.”

5 Cf. Francisco Blanco García, La literatura espanola en el siglo XIX, 3 ed. (Madrid, 1910), ii, 13–14: “… existieron desde 1850–1868, numerosas revistas con más vitalidad que las de ahora, y en cuyas colecciones viven archivados los productos del arte creador y de la critica séria. Los últimos volúmenes de El Semanario Pintoresco … y todos los de La Ilustración … acreditan la laboriosidad puramente mecánica de Fernandez de los Rios; pero la parte material de éstos es una verdadera lástima, una série de caricaturas con andrajos. Casilo mismo puede decirse del Museo de las Familias (1843–76), eclipsado por El Museo Universal…”

6 See appended “Index” for contributions by Bustillo and by a number of others not covered in the notes.

7 “Victor Hugo. La leyenda de los sighs,”“ iv, 82, 107; ”Dante. Sus comentadores,“ iv, 130; ”Escentricidad-Escéntricos“ [on Dickens and The Pickwick Club], iv, 179; ”Lamartine,“ iv, 306; ”El nino ciego.“ Imitación de Collet [sic] Cibber, v, 295; ”Los ojos negros y los azules.“ Imitación del italiano, vi, 334.

8 Fernández-Cuesta wrote the column until 1865—from 1860 on it appeared as the “Revista de la semana”—and again for the first six months of 1869. Others responsible for the column during his absence were Leon Galindo y de Vera, Bécquer, Ruiz Aguilera, Francisco Giner de los Ríos, and Narciso Campillo. Reviews and critical items by Fernández-Cuesta include: “Quintana,” i, 33; “Flores del alma. Poesias de D. P. Romero,” ii, 119; “Don M. Fernández y Gonzalez. Apuntes biográficos,” viii, 188; “Obras escogidas de don J. E. Hartzenbusch,” viii, 188.

9 xi, 19, 131, 162, 323, 330, 347, 354.

10 “La literatura portuguesa,” viii, 194, xii, 78, 206; “Ascendencia del ilustre poeta Luis de Camoens,” xii, 374.

11 Cf. Sherman H. Eoff, “The Spanish Novel of ‘Ideas’: Critical Opinion (1836–1880),” PMLA, lv (1940), 531–558: “Much of the criticism under consideration is of little intrinsic value; it is often influenced by religious and political prejudices and shows a level of mediocrity in critical thought, particularly for the reign of Isabel II.”

12 Cf. Ira Chart, “Antonio Hurtado: Symbol of the Transition Movement in Spanish Literature,” Summaries of Theses, 1941 (Harvard University, 1945), p. 359: “… as a novelist he probably deserved no better fate than is his today… . He does reflect, however, the divergent currents of the day which can be studied to better advantage in his own works than in those of a more renowned contemporary such as Lopez de Ayala.”

13 His reputation, however, was obviously not without its blemish. He was, for example, subjected to some gentle ribbing from Manuel del Palacio in his article “Las initiales” (x, 270) : “Manuel Fernández González, el principe de nuestros literatos, que cultiva con igual talento la poesía, el teatro y la novela, parece que ha querido escribir su biografía literaria en la portezuela del coche con estas très letras: M. F. G. Todos los que han leído sus obras las traducen así: Mentiras Fabrica Grandes.” In the same vein Palacio interprets the initials of the prolific and popular Enrique Pérez Escrich to stand for: Escribiendo Por Entregas.

14 Op. cit., ii, 588.

15 Philip H. Cummings (“Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer as a Journalist,” Hispania, xx [1937], 31–36) mistakenly mentions Laporta, and fails to include Federico Ruiz, among the several illustrators of Bécquer. Rico, the staff engraver, prepared all the plates.

16 Cf. E. Correa Calderón, “Los costumbristas espafioles del siglo XIX,” Bulletin hispanique, li (1949), 291–316: “Este terco hilillo de agua de costumbrismo … se ensancha y acrece a mediados del XIX con la aparición de la novela realista … el embrión de la no vela realista está en el costumbrismo, que contimiaba la tradición de la gran novela espanola, atomizándola, disgregándola en artículos sueltos … Los fragmentos del espejo se han integrado de nuevo, en laborioso mosaico, para formar un piano de amplias dimen-siones. Que estos novelistas sean una consecuencia de los modestos y alicortos costumbristas anteriores, podria comprobarse a poco que observemos el espejo, en el que en un principio se advierten todavia las suturas” (pp. 310–311).

17 Cf. Clark Gallaher, The Predecessors of Bécquer in the Fantastic Tale (Hammond, La., 1949), pp. 24–25 in particular.

18 For a critique and classification of the short story for these years, generously illustrated with examples from El museo universal, see Mariano Baquero Goyanes, El cuento espanol en el sigh XIX (Madrid, 1949).

19 Alfredo Opisso in his review of Copias y quejas by José Puig Pérez (xiii, 159).

20 Narciso Alonso Cortés, “El lastre clasicista en la poesia espanola del siglo XIX,” Estudios hispdnicos. Homenaje a Archer M. Huntington (Wellesley, Mass., 1952), p. 3. Of the poets specifically mentioned by Alonso Cortés, José Bermúdez de Castro could not have been a contributor to El museo universal, since he died in 1850.

21 Blanco Garcfa, ii, 20.

22 Blanco Garcia, ii, 136.

23 The cantar had been extremely popular since the dawn of the century, but at no time, perhaps, more so than in El museo universal during these transition years, especially in the late sixties, when a host of poets—minor ones for the most part—continued a trend initiated by Ruiz Aguilera in 1863. Among these cultivators of the cantar there were few whose names are yet recorded in even the more detailed histories of Spanish letters: J. Amat y Capmany, Pedro María Barrera, Eduardo Bustillo, Manuel P. Delgado, E. Frexas de Sabater, J. de Fuentes de Dios Aguado, Joaquín de Fuentes-Bustillo, Blanca de Gassó y Ortiz, Victor López Fabra, Ricardo Moly de Baños, Manuel Marín, Juan Ortega Gironés, Melchor de Palau, Antonio Pérez Rioja, José Puig Pérez, Juan Quirós de los Ríos, Francisco Rovira Aguilar, Carlos Rubio, Enrique Sibera, et al. It is interesting to observe that by contrast, Antonio de Trueba—whose widely acclaimed cantares had by 1851 already passed through eight editions—is not among their number. A glance at his offerings leads us to speculate that both the author and his readers had for some time past found his cuento popular a more satisfying form.

24 Cf. Alonso Cortés, op. cit., pp. 3–14.

25 Cf. John Kenneth Leslie, Trends and Currents in the Spanish Theatre (1SZ0–186S) as Reflected in the Dramatic Works of Ventura de la Vega (Princeton, 1938), pp. 111–118.

26 On the other hand, it is interesting to observe that Le Gentil reports less for Cervantes than we account for in El museo universal alone.

27 Reviews and appraisals are to be found, of course, in the running commentaries on the theater. For example, the opening performance of Tamayo's Un drama nuevo was enthusiastically covered by Martinez Pedrosa (xi, 187;, while Núñez de Arce's dramatic talent was endorsed by Bustillo (xiii, 2).

28 Cf. Garda Blanco, “Traductores e imitadores de Heine,” op. cit., ii, 76–94.

29 Cf. my Poe in Hispanic Literature (New York, 1934), pp. 23–34.

30 John DeLancey Ferguson, American Literature in Spain (New York, 1916), p. 56.

31 “El torbellino de nieve,” Cuento ruso (vu, 175) and “Dschellaledin,” Cuento ruso (vii, 343).

32 Cf. Edward W. Bieghler, “Early Spanish Translations of Pushkin,” HR, vi (1938), 348–349.

* Items marked with asterisk were written under pseudonym.