Artículos de Costumbres: By Mariano José de Larra

Mariano José de Larra (1809-37) is remembered today as perhaps the most important Spanish Romantic prose writer, thanks to the fame achieved by his artículos. These short, acutely observed commentaries on Spanish life throw a satirical gaze on issues that remain relevant today, from the trappings of chauvinism and excessive national pride to the fickleness of trends and the complex relationship between Spain and Europe. Larra's caustic depiction of bureaucratic sloth and the inanity of middle-class life in Madrid was fuelled by an impulse to reform society and move the reader to action, though his articles evolved towards the end of his life into a tortured and often neurotic process of self-examination that would culminate in the nightmarish pieces preceding his suicide in 1837. This edition includes a selection of the most important artículos, together with a glossary of difficult words, historical timeline, 'temas de debate y discusión', and an introductory study that locates Larra within the wider context of the transition from absolute monarchy to a modern liberal government in the 1830s. The Introduction also pays attention to the ways in which Larra's own life and works became an important icon for later generations of progressive Spaniards who embarked on further projects of critique and reform of traditional Spanish habits and institutions, and who saw in Larra an original critical voice anticipating that of the modern intellectual. This edition will be of interest to students and scholars of Spanish literature and culture, and modern literary studies.