Background
Jacinto Benavente was born in 1866.
Jacinto Benavente was born in 1866.
Benavente's major successes in the theater had for the most part been performed by 1913. Of the approximately 170 plays of an astonishing variety of types which he continued to write and see performed through 1953, those of importance later than 1913 come perhaps to half a dozen. It is significant that as early as 1922 he received the Nobel Prize for literature.
In method Benavente hardly represents the continuation of any native school but rather a familiarity with foreign models such as contemporary French dramatists and classical writers like Shakespeare. His forte is satire of society, subtle and ironic, the satire of the cynical, skeptical, sophisticated observer. Difficult to disentangle in his production are the threads representing the objective social critic and the moralist, the latter becoming more evident in works of his middle and later periods. Almost invariably the work of a skilled technician, his plays are not noted for action (there is often barely a plot) but for dialogue. Thought rather than character may be said to be his interest, with a certain idealism regularly lifting his work above the commonplace and pedestrian.
Benavente's first play, El nido ajeno (1894), hints what was to become characteristic, the atmosphere of drawing-room or genteel comedy, urbane conversation, and absence of complicated intrigue. La noche del sábadosabado (1903; "Saturday Night") is the first of several pieces which are artificial and symbolic in spirit and almost lyrical in tone, the characters representing all levels of a decadent international society. Rosas de otoñootono (1905; Autumnal Roses) is realistic, not a little gloomy, even "preachy"; it has been called a "thesis play," the subject being marital infidelity. Don Jacinto's masterwork is surely the artistic if unclassifiable Los intereses creados (1907; Bonds of Interest). The meaning of the title is explained by Crispín,Crispin, the servant and confidant in the play. In SeñoraSenora ama (1908) the scene is set among the Castilian peasantry, who speak in dialect. The play is a psychological study of a childless woman. Better known is another piece with a rural setting, La malquerida (1913), called in its English form The Passion Flower. The subject is incestuous love. In 1919 appeared the somewhat moralistic El mal que nos hacen ("The Evil That They Do to Us"), which deals with the fault of jealousy. The theme of Alfilerazos (1924), a satire of the reactionary and smug elements of society who hamper real charity and, in particular, religious and social tolerance, recalls that of Los malhechores del bien (1905; The Evil Doers of Good) and points to Pepa Doncel (1928). Called by one critic Benavente's best play after World War II, La Infanzona (1945) returned to the locale of SeñoraSenora ama and La malquerida. The subject was again incest. His last regularly performed play was Caperucita asusta al lobo (1953).