La coronación de José Zorrilla en 1889. Política, negocio y espectáculo en la España de la Restauración

Abstract

The ever more frequent utilisation of culture for political and economic purposes has increasingly stretched the meaning of the word, ultimately watering down its identification with an elite practice to the more contemporary sense of entertainment and leisure. This article attempts to analyse this process in 19th-century Spain through a notable event—the crowning of Zorilla. The crowning of José Zorrilla as poet laureate in June 1889 marked his instatement in the role of intellectual touchstone for Restoration Spain, as the creator of a kind of sentimental nationalism that sat well with conservative ways of thinking that made myths of an idealised past. Like all the other commemorations and centenaries celebrated in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, this event was part of a tendency of liberal states to instrumentalise culture, which although not new was an early forerunner of contemporary political strategies.

Keywords

• Culture
• Liberal state
• Literary life
• Nationalism
• Poetry
• Restoration