SPANISH COSTUMBRISMO /CUSTOM

Literary genre that flourished in Spain during the first half of the 19th century and slightly late in Spanish America.

It is a descriptive sketch of the customs or manners of the people of a particular locality or region, usually provincial.

The costumbristas concentrated on realistic portrayal of character rather than on development of plot, writing short prose sketches, sometimes sympathetic, sometimes satirical or critical.

Outstanding among the costumbristas in Spain were Ramón de Mesonero Romanos (1803-82), Serafín Estébanez Calderón and Mariano José de Larra who is considered by many to be the greatest prose writer and social critic of his age.

In Spanish America, the Chilean Alberto Blest Gana and the Mexican Indian Ignacio Manuel Altamirano (1834-93) were important representative of this trend.

Costumbrismo, although usually limited to short forms of prose, strongly influenced the realistic direction that the novel in Spanish was to take in the later years of the 19th century.