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 Moratin. 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 former liberal had grown conservative with age, and in "La Ponchada" he ridiculed the National Guard.

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 Breton 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.

See
* 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)

References

*1911