Manuel Polo y Peyrolón (1846–1918) was a Spanish writer, theorist, academic, and politician. He is best known as the author of five novels falling in between romanticism and realism; classified as part of costumbrismo, they are currently considered second-rate literature. As a philosopher he stuck to neo-Thomism and focused mostly on confronting Krausism. In education he represented Catholic regenerationism, fiercely pitted against the Liberal current. In politics he was active within Carlism; his career reached its peak during his 1896–1898 term in the Congress of Deputies and his 1907-1915 terms in the Senate.
Family and youth
There is little known about Polo's ancestors. His paternal forefathers were related to Aras de Alpuente, a town in the Valencia province; in the 17th century some Polos served there as local notaries.Aras de Alpuente. Guia del Archivo Municipal, Valencia 2000, p. 9 His father, Domingo Polo y Polo (died 1859),Javier Esteve Martí, La política antiliberal en España bajo el signo del nacionalismo: el padre Corbato y Polo y Peyrolón [PhD thesis Universitat de València], Valencia 2017, p. 17; see also Roberto Sanz Ponce, La Sierra de Albarracín y Polo y Peyroloñ: historia de una relación ascética, [in:] Rehalda 13 (2010), p. 25 also originated from Aras.Apuntes biográficos, [in:] Manuel Polo y Peyrolon, Quien mal anda, ¿cómo acaba?, Valencia 1890, p. 7 He worked as property registrar in Belchite and according to his son he was among the founders of the Carlist daily La Esperanza.Esteve Martí 2017, p. 17 During the First Carlist War he sided with the legitimists and served as secretary to general José María Arévalo y Reguero.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 25 Following the Carlist defeat he had to abandon his job and settled in Cañete, a village on the western slopes of Montes Universales, a southern ridge of Sistema Ibérico. Located in the Castillan Province of Cuenca, the area bordered the region of Aragón and formed part of what was once known as Alto Maestrazgo. Polo y Polo practiced as a local lawyer.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 19 Manuel's mother, María Peyrolón Lapuerta, was born in Aragon, on the other sides of the sierra slopes; she originated either from CalomardeSanz Ponce 2010, p. 19 or from Gea de Albarracin.Polo y Peyrolón 1890, p. 7 The couple had at least two sons, Manuel and Florentino; María died during childbirth in 1853.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 19 Some time in the mid-1850s Domingo Polo developed very serious health problems and pledged that in case of recovery he would dedicate his life to God; indeed he later entered an unspecified religious order and became a friar.B. de Artagan [Reynaldo Brea], Políticos del carlismo, Barcelona 1912, p. 112
Since the mid-1850s Manuel and his younger brother were looked after by their maternal aunt Concepción.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 19, the aunt became his second mother, Javier Urcelay Alonso, Introducción, [in:] Memorias políticas de M. Polo y Peyrolón (1870-1913), Madrid 2013, , p. 17 Spending most of his childhood and youth with relatives in Gea de Albarracín,Urcelay Alonso 2013, p. 11 he considered himself a turolenseSanz Ponce 2010, p. 19 and viewed Sierra de Albarracín as his "" (little homeland).Esteve Martí 2017, p. 18 He was brought up in a fervently Catholic environmentPolo y Peyrolón, Manuel (1846 -1918) entry at mcnbiografias.com and inherited a Traditionalist political outlook from his father; his first childhood lectures were Carlist booklets and periodicals.Urcelay Alonso 2013, p. 12 Following his early education in Albarracin, he frequented the institute in Valencia;Esteve Martí 2017, p. 18 exact dates are unclear, though most likely his college days were in the early 1860s. According to one source he majored in philosophy and literature at Universidad Central in Madrid and in civil and canon law at Universidad de Valencia.mcnbiografias.com, see also cover of his works, available here Guided by Miguel Vicente Almazán,Carles Sirera Mirrales, Neocatolicismo y darwinismo en las aulas: el caso del instituto provincial de Valencia, [in:] Ayer 81 (2011), p. 251 Manuel would later gain PhD laurels in philosophy.Manuel Polo y Peyrolon, Elementos etica o filosofia moral, Valencia 1882 According to another author, he studied both law and literature in Valencia;Esteve Martí 2017, p. 18 none of the sources consulted provides the date of his graduation. Following a brief and temporary stint as assistant professor of metaphysics in Valencia in 1868–69,Sirera Mirrales 2011, p. 251 he returned to Aragón and successfully applied to Instituto de Segunda Enseñanza de Teruel, where he began teaching psychology, logic, and ethics in 1870.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 20, Urcelay Alonso 2013, p. 11 Manuel Polo y Peyrolón never married and had no children.Urcelay Alonso 2013, p. 12
Novelist
Polo's first literary work, , appeared in 1873.full title Realidad poética de mis montañas. Costumbres de la Sierra de Albarracín Except that it was a collection of short storiesLos Mellizos, El sí de una serrana, La tío Levítico, Lo que puede una mujer, Jose Manuel Vilar Pacheco, Breve noticia de obras literarias y escritores de la Sierra de Albarracín available here instead of a novel, it revealed characteristics marking his later works: traditional themes, a simple plot and clear educational purpose, with narration set in the provincial milieu of Sierra de Albarracín, painted with attention to detail and with a focus on local customs typical rather of an ethnographical study.actually, the volume contained also Vocabulario para la inteligencia de los provincialismos, palabras anticuadas, familiares ó poco conocidas y frases oscuras contenidas en estos Cuadros All these features were developed in Polo's first novel, Los Mayos (1878),full title Los Mayos. Costumbres populares de la Sierra de Albarracín a rural love story intended as a praise of loyalty and fidelitySanz Ponce 2010, p. 23 and considered his best work,Urcelay Alonso 2013, p. 12 translated into Italian and German.see Libros recibidos section of Revista de Aragon, 20 (1879), available here The consecutive ones, (1884)full title Sacramento y concubinato. Novela original de costumbres aragonesas and (1890) assumed a more militant tone, aimed against liberal and secular lifestyles.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 23 (1905)full title Pacorro. Novela de costumbres serranas confronted the deeds of a young liberal with the virtues of a young Carlist, cast against the background of a small town undergoing the turbulent period of 1868–1876.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 24 The last of Polo's major literary works, (1906),full title El guerrillero. Novela tejida con retazos de la historia militar carlista revealed more threads of an adventure story; set during Third Carlist War, it was heavily based on wartime recollections of his brother Florentino.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 24 Polo's shorter stories remain scaled-down versions of his novels.like Seis novelas cortas (1891) or Alma y vida serrana, costumbres populares de la Sierra de Albarracín (serie de cuentos) (1910)
Among his contemporaries Polo was appreciated usually by those sharing a similar traditional outlook, such as Emilia Pardo BazánJesus Bregante, Diccionario espasa. Literatura española, Madrid 2003, p. 753; relations between Polo and Baztan soured as she later accused him of plagiarism, see mcnbiografias.com and his friends Marcelinó Menéndez y PelayoPaula Lázaro Izquirerda, Lengua patria y dialectos regionales: una convivencia necesaria en el pensamiento de Manuel Polo y Peyrolon, [in:] Rehalda 5 (2007), p. 28 and José María de Pereda.see Jose Maria de Pereda, Cuarenta cartas ineditas a Manuel Polo y Peyrolon, Santander 1990, A conservative literary review, Ilustración Católica,he started to co-operate with the periodical in 1880, María del Carmen Servén Díez, La ilustración católica frente a la novela: 1877-1894, [in:] Revista de literatura 127 (2002), p. 231; identified him as a brilliant follower of Fernán Caballero,Ulpiano Lada Ferreras La narrativa oral literaria: estudio pragmático, Oviedo 2003, , 9783935004367, p. 96 classified his writings as a "" (family novel) and hailed his prose as "" (the restorer of the Castilian novel in modern times).Servén Díez 2002, p. 229 Noted for authenticity "which does not disfigure reality", his realism was appreciated as an antidote to naturalism – the trend he consciously opposedcompare his theoretical study El naturalismo ¿ es un signo de progreso ó de decadencia en la literatura?, published in 1885 - and "the venom of Zola".Servén Díez 2002, p. 231 By favourably disposed contemporaries he was put next to Fernán Caballero, de Pereda, Francisco Navarro Villoslada, Julio Alarcón y Meléndez, Juan Valera and padre Coloma;Servén Díez 2002, p. 234 critics dubbed him a "" (literary monstrosity.)loosely translatable as "literary clown", an insult cointed by José Martinez Ruiz in the 1890s, quoted after Felipe Pedraza Jimenez, Milagros Rodriguez Caceres, Manual de literatura española, vol. IX, Tafalla 1987, , p. 537
The limited popularity of Polo's works hardly outlived their author. Even in the early 20th century he was only marginally mentioned by historians of Spanish literature;in his massive work Historia de la lengua y literatura castellana, Julio Cejador y Frauca marginally mentions Polo y Peyrolón in volume IX (Segundo periodo de la epoca realista), Madrid 1918, but ignores him in volumes X/XI (Epoca regional y modernista), Madrid 1919 later on he went into oblivion,he is straightforwardly mentioned as a second-rate novelist by Santiago Sebastian, Aportación de Polo y Peyrolón a la Etnologia turolense, [in:] Aragon 1958, p. 6 though was occasionally acknowledged in anthologies.excerpts from his Historia de un ochavo moruno (1884) were placed in Jose Bergua (ed.), Las mil mejores paginas de la lengua castellana. Antologia de prosistas, Madrid 1969, pp. 301-303 Today he is missing even in fairly detailed studies written either by SpanishIris M. Zavala, Historia y critica de la literatura espanola, vol. 5 (Romanticismo y realismo), Barcelona 1982, , Juan Luis Alborg, Historia de la literatura española, vol. 6 (Realismo y naturalismo. La novela), Madrid 1996, of foreign scholars,D. L. Shaw, Historia de la literatura española, vol. 5 (El siglo XIX), Barcelona 1972, though he is noted by some dictionaries.compare Ricardo Gullon (ed.), Diccionario de Literatura Española y Hispanoamericana, vol. 2, Madrid 1993, , p. 1312, or Bregante 2003, p. 753 He is usually situated in between romanticism and realism,Mariano Baquero Goyanes, El cuento español: del romanticismo al realismo, Madrid 2012, , p. 78 falling into the costumbrismo (or ) trend,Urcelay Alonso 2013, p. 12 also a good representative of .Bregante 2003, p. 753 It is noted that his conventional, meager plots can hardly support the weight of nagging moralising objectives, especially given the repetitive nature of his works.Sanz Ponce 2010, p. 22, Magdalena Aguinaga Alfonso, El costumbrismo de Pereda: innovaciones y técnicas narrativas, Oviedo 1996, , 9783930700813, p. 154 On the other hand, his novels are appreciated as inexhaustible sources of perfectly captured anecdotes and customs, few readers admitting even some charm.Polo y Perolón, Manuel entry on Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa online, available here Apart from realism,occasionally Polo's realism also slipped into somewhat cruel naturalism, see Baquero 2012, p. 78 he is credited for introducing new narrative techniques.Baquero 2012, p. 77 He is also among the best-known authors contributing to Carlism in literature from the legitimist perspective.
Scholar and philosopher