Juan Eugenio Hartzenbusch
Encyclopedia
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
dramatist. He was the Director of the National Library of Spain until he retired in 1875.
Biography
Hartzenbusch was born in MadridMadrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
, Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
. His father was a German furniture carpenter and his Mother a Spanish woman with the name María Josefa Martínez Calleja. Hertzenbusch's childhood was spent as an apprentice in his father's shop in order to become a cabinet-maker. He studied French 1815-1818 and then took a four year course in the Jesuit College of San Isidro el Real in Madrid where he studied principally rhetoric, Latin, and philosophy. He followed his father's trade till 1830, when he learned shorthand
Shorthand
Shorthand is an abbreviated symbolic writing method that increases speed or brevity of writing as compared to a normal method of writing a language. The process of writing in shorthand is called stenography, from the Greek stenos and graphē or graphie...
and joined the staff of the Gaceta. He married Doña Maria Bernardina Morgue in 1830. She died in 1836. His earliest dramatic essays were translations from Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, Voltaire
Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet , better known by the pen name Voltaire , was a French Enlightenment writer, historian and philosopher famous for his wit and for his advocacy of civil liberties, including freedom of religion, free trade and separation of church and state...
and Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, père
Alexandre Dumas, , born Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was a French writer, best known for his historical novels of high adventure which have made him one of the most widely read French authors in the world...
; he then turned to adapting old Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
plays, and in 1837 produced his first original play, Los Amantes de Teruel, the subject of which had previously been used by Andrés Rey de Artieda, Tirso de Molina
Tirso de Molina
Tirso de Molina was a Spanish Baroque dramatist, poet and a Roman Catholic monk.Originally Gabriel Téllez, he was born in Madrid. He studied at Alcalá de Henares, joined the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy on November 4, 1600, and entered the Monastery of San Antolín at Guadalajara,...
and Juan Pérez de Montalbán
Juan Pérez de Montalbán
Juan Pérez de Montalbán , Spanish Catholic priest, dramatist, poet and novelist, was born at Madrid.At the age of eighteen he became a licentiate in theology, was ordained priest in 1625 and appointed notary to the Inquisition...
. Los Amantes de Teruel at once made the author's reputation, but Doña Mencia (1840) and Alfonso el Casto (1841) were disappointments; it was not till 1845 that he repeated his former success with La Jura en Santa Gadea.
In 1900, Don Eugenio Hartzenbusch, Juan's son, published Bibliografia in Madrid which presents in succinct form as complete a list of his father's writings. It remains a testimonial to the lifelong indefatigable industry of this prolific writer. Summarized, the record there given compromises ~ 15 collections, including various editions of his works, 94 dramatic works, 236 poems 231 fables in verse, 19 addresses, 8 biographical articles, 15 stories, 14 articles depitcing manners and customs, 9 literary criticism, 3 dramatic criticism, 33 prologues, 22 notes and articles referring to "Don Quixote" 22 miscellaneous articles, and 9 works of different authors collected and annotated. Such a record of literary activity tells its own story. It is the life of an author and a scholar, who through hard work and conscientious effort, secured for himself an honorable place among Spain's men of letters.
Hartzenbusch was the chief librarian at the Biblioteca Nacional, National Library, from 1862 to 1875, and was an indefatigable editor of many national classics. Inferior in inspiration to other contemporary Spanish dramatists, Hartzenbusch excelled his rivals in versatility and in conscientious workmanship.
As a member of the Real Academia Española
Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies...
, he edited works from Tirso de Molina
Tirso de Molina
Tirso de Molina was a Spanish Baroque dramatist, poet and a Roman Catholic monk.Originally Gabriel Téllez, he was born in Madrid. He studied at Alcalá de Henares, joined the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy on November 4, 1600, and entered the Monastery of San Antolín at Guadalajara,...
, Calderón de la Barca and Pedro de Alarcón, among others.
After retiring from the National Library in 1875, his strength of body and mind began to give way, and after losing his second wife, Salvadora Hiriat, he failed rapidly and died at his home in Madrid on 2 August 1880. The Real Academia Española
Real Academia Española
The Royal Spanish Academy is the official royal institution responsible for regulating the Spanish language. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but is affiliated with national language academies in twenty-one other hispanophone nations through the Association of Spanish Language Academies...
, the Spanish Academy, did him the honor of accompanying his body to its last resting place, the Cementerio de la Sacramenta de San Ginès y San Luis.