Spanish literature

Yesterday's blog prompted a thought that I've been mulling around for a few years.  The English-speaking world, while justifiably proud of its literary heritage, is unjustly disdainful of Spanish literature. It is so wrongly scornful of Spanish literature that it's even unfairly claimed credit for several things that rightly belong to the Spanish legacy.

First of all William Shakespeare, perhaps the greatest known author in English, is widely regarded as one of the most prolific writers of all time.  Yet Lope de Vega, whose major work is Fuenteovejuna, wrote over 1,800 plays, of which eighty are considered masterpieces. 

Charles Dickens is credited with many fine works, including Oliver Twist, a picaresque novel of the first order.  Yet it was an anonymous Spanish work, Lazarillo de Tormes, that created the genre.  Because Twist was later made into a major Hollywood movie, many people are unaware of the Spanish work.

The knight-errant novel is known mostly for the tales of King Artur and the Knights of the Round Table.  Yet Amadis de Gaula, a Spanish-Portuguese collaborative novel, predates the Malory work by nearly two hundred years.

Epistolary novels also originated in the 1500's in Spain.  The foremost work in this genre is the magisterial Pepita Jiménez, by Juan Valera.  The

There may be several reasons that explain the ascendancy of the English works over the Spanish works.  The British Empire overtook the Spanish Empire and had a much wider influence over a greater part of the world.  The British Empire also was a more prosperous and stronger empire for a longer period of time.  When the United States, one of its former colonies, grew so exceptionally, the fact that its major language was, ironically, English and not Spanish contributed to the popularity of the English works. 

Even after the reduction of the British empire it never bottomed out like Spain did in the wake of its imperial period.  After the Siglo de Oro, the Spanish Golden Age, Spain entered into a period of over two hundred years of tremendous and precipitous fall, only recently out of which did it begin to recover.  The United Kingdom, despite facing two World Wars, never fell as far as did Spain.

Since the inception of the Nobel Prizes, twelve Latins (either Spanish- or Portuguese-language) have been awarded the Nobel for literature.  Some twenty-two English-speaking authors have won the award.  The countries in which English is the main language consist of much more literate populations than those in which Spanish is spoken.  Nevertheless, since 1970, there have been seven Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking writers; in the same time frame, roughly ten English speakers have been awarded the prize.  Spanish more than holds its own with English when it comes to literature.

Spanish also has a rich history of being more cutting-edge.  Magical realism has brought to the fore such authors as Gabriel García Márquez, Isabel Allende and Julio Cortázar.  Greats like Octavio Paz, Camilo José Cela (who else would dare to publish a book called El diccionario secreto, a book dedicated to compiling the curse words of a language?), Miguel Delibes, Marío Vargas Llosa, Carlos Ruíz Záfon, Carlos Fuentes and so many others.

It's high time Spanish literature was given the credit it's due.