Manuel Bretón de los Herreros

Breton de los Herreros

Manuel Bretón de los Herreros (December 19, 1796, Quel (Logrono) – November 8, 1873, Madrid) was a Spanish dramatist, educated at Madrid. Enlisting on 24 May 1812, he served against the French in Valencia and Catalonia, and retired with the rank of corporal on 8 March 1822. He obtained a minor post in the civil service under the liberal government, and on his discharge determined to earn his living by writing for the stage.

His first piece, A la vejez viruelas, was produced on 4 October 1824, and proved the writer to be the legitimate successor of the younger Moratín. His industry was astonishing: between October 1824 and November 1828, he composed thirty-nine plays, six of them original, the rest being translations or recasts of classic masterpieces. In 1831 he published a translation of Tibullus, and acquired by it an unmerited reputation for scholarship which secured for him an appointment as sub-librarian at the national library. But the theatre claimed him for its own, and with the exception of Elena and a few other pieces in the fashionable romantic vein, his plays were a long series of successes. His only serious check occurred in 1840; the formerly more liberal government had grown conservative, and when in La Ponchada the author ridiculed the National Guard, exception was taken in high circles.

He was dismissed from the national library, and for a short time was so unpopular that he seriously thought of emigrating to America; but the storm blew over, and within two years Bretón de los Herreros had regained his supremacy on the stage. He became secretary to the Spanish Academy, quarrelled with his fellow-members, and died at Madrid. He is the author of some 360 original plays, twenty-three of which are in prose. No Spanish dramatist of the nineteenth century approaches him in comic power, in festive invention, and in the humorous presentation of character, while his metrical dexterity is unique. Marcela, o ¿a cuál de los tres? (1831), Muérete y verás! (1837) and La Escuela del matrimonio (1852) still hold the stage, and are likely to hold it so long as Spanish is spoken.

Selected works

• A la vejez, viruelas (1824) (In Old Age, Chickenpox)
• Marcela o ¿Cuál de las tres? (1831)
• Muérete y verás (1837)
• La escuela del matrimonio (1852)

References

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 
• Marqués de Molíns, Breton de los Herreros, recuerdos de su vida y de sus obras (Madrid, 1883)
• Obras de Breton de Herreros (5 vols., Madrid, 1883)
• E. Pieyro, El Romanticismo en Espana (Paris, 1904)

Persondata
Name	Breton De Los Herreros, Manuel
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Date of birth	1796
Place of birth
Date of death	1873
Place of death