Encyclopedia > Antonio García Gutiérrez

  Article Content

Antonio García Gutiérrez

Antonio García Gutiérrez (July 5, 1812 - August 6, 1884), Spanish dramatist, was born at Chiclana (Cádiz), and studied medicine in his native town.

In 1832 he removed to Madrid, and earned a scanty living by translating plays of Scribe and the elder Dumas; despairing of success, he was on the point of enlisting when he suddenly sprang into fame as the author of El Trovador, which was played for the first time on March 1, 1836. García Gutiérrez never surpassed this first effort, which placed him among the leaders of the romantic movement in Spain, and which became known all over Europe through Verdi's music.

His next great success was Simon Bocanegra (1843), but, as his plays were not lucrative, he emigrated to Spanish America, working as a journalist in Cuba and Mexico till 1850, when he returned to Spain. The best works of his later period are a zarzuela entitled El Grumete (1853), La Venganza catalana (1864) and Juan Lorenzo (1865).

He became head of the archaeological museum at Madrid, and died there on the 6th of August 1884. His Poesías (1840) and another volume of lyrics, entitled Luz y tinieblas (1842), are unimportant; but the brilliant versification of his plays, and his power of analysing femine emotions, give him a foremost place among the Spanish dramatists of the 19th century.

This entry was originally from the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.



All Wikipedia text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License

 
  Search Encyclopedia

Search over one million articles, find something about almost anything!
 
 
  
  Featured Article
Holtsville, New York

... States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 18.0 km² (7.0 mi²). 18.0 km² (7.0 mi²) of it is land and none of the area is covered with water. ...

 
 
 
This page was created in 21.9 ms