Mariano José de Larra

Mariano José de Larra (born March 24, 1809, Madrid—died Feb. 13, 1837, Madrid) was a Spanish journalist and satirist who attacked contemporary society for its social habits, literary tastes, and political ineptitude.

Larra’s family was forced to move to France in 1814 owing to public resentment against his father for having collaborated with the French during the Napoleonic occupation of Spain. They returned in 1818, and Larra’s father became the personal physician to the brother of Fernando VII. In 1828 Larra published his own newspaper, El duende satírico del día, for which he wrote his first journalistic essays. He later published another paper, El pobrecito hablador (1832–33), and then became drama critic for the nation’s finest newspaper, La revista española, under the pen name Fígaro. In 1834 his play Macías was produced and he published his only novel, El doncel de Don Enrique el doliente.

Larra’s personal life was filled with unhappiness, and his work became increasingly bitter and pessimistic. When he was 16 he fell in love with a woman who, he later discovered, was his father’s mistress. He married early and unhappily in 1829, and his wife’s third child—a daughter who later became the mistress of King Amadeus—was reputedly not Larra’s. He committed suicide after being rejected by a woman with whom he had had a long affair.

Unlike most other writers of prose sketches of the customs of society (costumbristas), who took a nostalgic approach, Larra exposed in his mordant and vitriolic sketches the pretentiousness and absurdity of contemporary Spanish society. In journalistic essays and articles he directed his trenchant wit and sarcasm against almost every aspect of Spain’s political, social, and intellectual life, describing the corruption, conservatism, bigotry, laziness, apathy, intellectual vacuity, and hypocrisy that he saw. What distinguishes Larra is the analytical depth and penetration of his criticism, along with a certain reforming zeal and a morally constructive emphasis; these qualities prompted the Generation of ’98 to hail him as a prophetic forerunner.