ZORRILLA Y MORAL, thOr-rel'yA Jost (1517-93). A Spanish poet and playwright, born in Valladolid February 21, 1817. After studying law for a while at Toledo and Madrid, he first gained notice (1837) by his verses on the satirist Larra (Flgaro). Many lyrics and poetic legends followed these verses; then came dramas in the same abundance. He composed and pub lished his incomplete poem, Granada (1852), in Paris. Always in straitened circumstances, Ire went to :Mexico to try his fortune: in 1855. and, going back to Spain for a visit in 1866, was cut off from returning to Mexico by the disasters that befell Maximilian. From 1871 to 1883 lie suffered want, though the theatres, as he complains in his Recuertios del tiempo riejo ISSO), were making fortunes by his plays. His last years were freed from want by a Government pension of 30,000 reals. He died at Madrid January 23, 1893.
The Soledad del camp) and the Indecision are his most important lyric works. But he shows to greatest advantage in his various teyendas, in which he has embodied the history of Spain, not as it is to be found in the written records. but such as a genius, working under the inspiration given by association with the monu ments and ruins of medieval Spain. could recon struct from the Christian and chivalrous tra ditions of the Middle Ages. In thus turning hack to the Middle Ages. Zorrilla obeys one of the chief tendencies of the Romantic movement in Spain as elsewhere in Europe. Poetic eloquence, descriptive force. patriotism, religious fervor. and strong idealism characterize his legends, and these qualities are fond already in the cantos dcl trovador (1S-10-41). The Granada (1832)
would, if completed, be the great epic of modern Spain. The legends that followed the appearance of this fragment are inferior to it in worth. viz., the Lependa del ('id (1,982), and El eantar del Romero, Zorrilla's first play, written in collaboration with Carefa CutbIrrez„ was the Juan handolo (1839). A long series of plays followed. and of these the best are Ill z'apatero p el rep: Traidor, ineonfeso p mOrtir; .1 burn jucz mejor testi go ; and non Juan Tenorio. The great slice( ss of these plays in Spain was I Inc to the fact that they are inspired by Spanish poetic tradition, by Sp:lid:II history and legend. The Don .Lunn Tenorio treats the tradition which Tirso de Molina's Rurlador de Se rilla had made famous an the Spanish stage. Zorrilla's Don .Juan differs from the general eon ception of that scoundrel in that he is made to (lie repentant. The Don Juan Tcnorio is so great a favorite of the Spanish race that a performance of it has become a necesonry element of a na tional celebration. The author, however, de tested this product of his own genius, and he showed his contempt for it by working it over into zarzuela or vaudeville.
Consult the Obras dramoticas y fir ices de D. Jose Zorrilla (\ladvid. 1805) and the biography by 1. Fernandez Flores, puhlished with the drama Troidor in Novo v Colsim's actors dranoitieos contemporoncos, vol. i. (Madrid, 1881).