In the third decade of the nineteenth century romanticism, with its revolt against the restrictions of classicism, with its free play of imagination and emotion, and with lyricism as its predominant note, flowed freely into Spain from England and France. Spain had remained preëminently the home of romanticism when France and England had turned to classicism, and only in the second half of the eighteenth century had Spanish writers given to classicism a reception that was at the best lukewarm. Now romanticism was welcomed back with open arms, and Spanish writers turned eagerly for inspiration not only to Chateaubriand, Victor Hugo and Byron, but also to Lope de Vega and Calderón. Spain has always worshiped the past, for Spain was once great, and the appeal of romanticism was page xxxv therefore the greater as it drew its material largely from national sources.
In 1830 a club known as the Parnasillo was formed in Madrid to spread the new literary theories, much as the Cénacle had done in Paris. The members of the Parnasillo met in a wretched little café to avoid public attention. Here were to be found Bretón de los Herreros, Estébanez Calderón, Mesonero Romanos, Gil y Zárate, Ventura de la Vega, Espronceda and Larra. The influence of Spanish epic and dramatic poetry had been important in stimulating the growth of romanticism in England, Germany and France. In England, Robert Southey translated into English the poem and the chronicle of the Cid and Sir Walter Scott published his Vision of Don Roderick; in Germany, Herder's translation of some of the Cid _romances_ and the Schlegel brothers' metrical version of Calderón's dramas had called attention to the merit of the earlier Spanish literature; and in France, Abel Hugo translated into French the _Romancero_ and his brother Victor made Spanish subjects popular with _Hernani_ and _Ruy Blas_ and the _Légendes des siècles_. But Spain, under the despotism of Ferdinand VII, the "Tyrant of Literature," remained apparently indifferent or even hostile to its own wonderful creations, and clung outwardly to French neo-classicism.[2] Böhl von Faber,[3] the German consul at Cadiz, who was influenced by the Schlegel brothers, had early called attention to the merit of the Spanish literature of the Golden Age and had even had some of Calderón's plays performed at Cadiz. And in page xxxvi 1832 Durán published his epoch-making _Romancero_. In 1833 Ferdinand VII died and the romantic movement was hastened by the home-coming of a number of men who had fled the despotism of the monarch and had spent some time in England and France, where they had come into contact with the romanticists of those countries. Prominent amongst these were Martínez de la Rosa, Antonio Alcalá Galiano, the Duke of Rivas and Espronceda.