ECHEGARAY Y EIZAGUIRRE, JOSE Spanish mathematician, statesman and dramatist, passed out at the head of the list of engineers in the Escuela de Caminos at Madrid, and, after a brief practical experience at Almeria and Granada, was appointed professor of pure and applied mathe matics in the school where he had lately been a pupil. Between 1867 and 1874 he acted as minister of education and of finance; upon the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty he withdrew from politics and under the pseudonym of Jorge Hayaseca won a new reputation as a dramatist with El Libro talonario (1874). Later in the same year Echegaray achieved a popular triumph with La Esposa del vengador, in which the good and bad qualities—the clever stagecraft and unbridled extravagance—of his later work are clearly noticeable. From 1874 onwards he wrote, with vary ing success, a prodigious number of plays. Among the most favourable specimens of his talent may be mentioned En el puno de la espada (1875), 0 locura o santidad (1877) and En el seno de la muerte (1879). El gran Galeoto (1881), perhaps the best of Echegaray's plays in conception and execution, has been translated into several languages. The humorous proverb, , Piensa mal y acertards? exemplifies the author's limitations, but the attempt is interesting as an instance of ambitious versatility. His susceptibility to new ideas is illustrated in such pieces as Mariana (1892), Mancha que limpia (1895), El Hijo de Don Juan (1892) and El Loco Dios (1900) ; these indicate a close study of Ibsen, and El Loco Dios more especially might be taken for an uninten tional parody of Ibsen's symbolism.
Echegaray enjoyed exceptional popularity for over 3o years, but his vogue is now over. He had valuable gifts : in artful con struction, in the arrangement of dramatic scenes, in mere theatrical technique, in the focusing of attention on his chief personages, few writers excel him. He had, moreover, a powerful, gloomy imagination, which is momentarily impressive. But in the drawing of character, in the invention of felicitous phrase, in the con trivance of verbal music, he is deficient. He alternates between the use of verse and prose; and his hesitancy in choosing a me dium of expression is amply justified, for the writer's prose is not more distinguished than his verse.
See L. Anton del Olmet and A. Garcia Carraffa, Eckegaray (0912).