1873-1874, End of a Century?: Time and Space in Valera's Pepita Jiménez, Ros de Olano's Jornadas de retorno, and Alarcón's El sombrero de tres picos and La Alpujarra

Abstract

This article argues for the existence of a literature of the first Spanish Republic in the early 1870s. Valera's Pepita Jimenez makes sense in relation to this literature, rather than in comparison with 'Realism'. The literature of the first republic is distinguished by two facets: an ongoing dialogue with Ros de Olano's experiments in simultaneous compression and extension of form; and a belief that the nineteenth-century revolutionary spirit of the age has reached a critical end point, and needs reinvention that leads to Restoration politics.