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In-Depth Information
Particularly after he became profession-
ally established in the law Alarcón produced
numerous plays, although few were as well
regarded as his earlier achievements. He
was much derided by jealous rivals, who
mocked his pretentiousness, his colonial
origin, and his physical deformities. L
OPE
DE
V
EGA
was particularly scathing, as was the
satirist F
RANCISCO
DE
Q
UEVEDO
.
Despite the negative reaction of his con-
temporaries Alarcón was undoubtedly
among the ablest of Spanish dramatists. As
a lawyer he was especially conscious of
questions relating to false ideas, trickery,
and veracity. His point of view is particu-
larly evident in his best-known play,
La ver-
dad sospechosa
(The suspicious truth), written
during Alarcón's period of straitened cir-
cumstances in 1618. The protagonist, Don
García, is an appealing young man whose
only vice is a tendency to invent stories. As
the plot develops, what seems at first to be
a comic tangle ends sadly with García losing
the girl he loves and forced into an undesir-
able marriage. Alarcón thus makes the
point that truth telling is not only moral but
likely to lead to the best result. When Pierre
Corneille appropriated this play some years
later under the title
Le Menteur
(The liar), he
emphasized the farcical elements and gave
it a falsely happy ending—a resolution
more satisfying to French audiences than to
Spaniards. Also illustrating Alarcón's con-
cern with the sad outcome of character
defects is
Las paredes oyen
(The walls have
ears), dating from 1617. Here, too, the
polite relationships of urbane society are
disrupted by the protagonist's inability to
resist a particular form of behavior, in this
case, slander. Another moral flaw is con-
fronted by Alarcón in
La prueba de las prome-
sas
(The proof of the promises) where the
all-too-familiar sin of ingratitude destroys
happy relationships.
In these and two dozen other plays, Alar-
cón presents striking characters, clever dia-
logue, and an adroit revelation of the fatal
deficiencies that underlie a civilized social
setting. Although his total literary output is
far smaller than that of his major contem-
poraries, Alarcón has left an impressive
dramatic legacy and one that has been an
inspiration to playwrights in other coun-
tries as well as his own.
Alas, Leopoldo (Clarín)
(1852-1901)
Spanish writer
Best known under his pseudonym “Clarín,”
this Asturian studied law at the Universities
of Madrid and Oviedo and became a profes-
sor at the latter. His 1884 novel,
La regenta
(The regent's wife), is an unsparing depic-
tion of the provincial bourgeoisie, set in the
fictional town of Vetusta (actually Oviedo).
Along with
Su único hijo
(His only son),
published in 1890, it established him as one
of the major novelists of late 19th-century
Spain. Some compared him with Emile Zola
(although he disdained what he considered
the crudities of the French writer) and
regarded Alas, rather than E
MILIA
P
ARDO
B
AZÁN
, as the prime exponent of Spanish
naturalism (although he was an admirer
and defender of Pardo Bazán).
Alas was perhaps even better known as a
literary critic, whose numerous essays on
contemporary literature were often so bit-
ing and personal as to terrorize the authors
who came under his scrutiny. Despite his
reputation as a ferocious reviewer and his
harsh depiction of small-town hypocrisy in
his best-known novels, Alas was, above all,
a conservative moralist, who held writers to
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