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THE purpose of this essay is to explore a question that I have frequently asked myself and that I assume other readers may have posed to themselves, too. Obviously, by my first statement I have suggested that the reader will be entertaining a number of questions, and I know that definitive answers are frequently elusive. The question is: why is it that of what are considered the major Romantic dramas (I am referring to La conjuración de Venecia, Macías, Don Álvaro o la fuerza del sino, El trovador, Los amantes de Teruel, and Don Juan Tenorio)1 the heroes - with one significant exception - always are, or discover that they are, of aristocratic birth? In some cases the hero even aspires to become a noble, as does Manrique in El trovador. Rugiero of La conjuration does so indirectly; and Don Álvaro, although he considers himself noble, nevertheless seeks integration into the Spanish nobility. However, in each of these dramas the thrust of the message will be to proclaim the merit of the individual as the result of his deeds, his character, his talent, etc.: he is someone who has proved himself to be worthy, superior. Of the major Romantic dramas it is only Macías that breaks from this pattern of dependency and offers a hero who has no apparent aspiration to nobility; nor does Elvira, the only heroine of these works who likewise is not of noble birth.
Many critics have written of what Spanish Romantic drama means, in the sense of a new world order. J. Rubio Jiménez writes that "[e]l nuevo drama es el del individualismo. Se acrecienta el deseo de hacer prevalecer la propia personalidad" and that "[e]l ideal humano de esta nueva literatura era incompatible con el concepto anterior del teatro y de los héroes trágicos. [. . .] [S]e tambalean valores aceptados antes como inamovibles y todo se hace opinión" (10), and he notes not only that the bourgeoisie was achieving greater "protagonismo" in these works but also that "[e]l drama burgués significó la relativización y la depreciación de las virtudes heroicas de la aristocracia y, de otro lado, la difusión de la moral burguesa y de la igualdad de derechos reclamada por esta clase" (9). Ermanno Caldera too has...