Jose María de Pereda was
born in Polanco the sixth of February 1833 and he died in Santander the first
of March 1906. He was a Spanish writer belonging to the realistic movement. His
more important works are: ‘Sotileza’, ‘Peñas Arriba’, ‘De tal palo tal astilla’
and ‘La Puchera’; wich works made him well-known and admitted to the Spanish
Royal Academy of Language.
His parents were Francisco
de Pereda and Bárbara Sánchez Porrúa respectively from Polanco and Comillas.
When he was 11 in 1843 he was already a pupil at the high-school where at Menéndez Pelayo, Gregorio Marañón
and Gerardo Diego had been students. During his school years he was an average
student more addicted to hunting, fishing and life close to nature than other
activities.
Once his studies in
Humanities were finished in the autumn of 1852 he moved to Madrid with the
intention of doing preparatory courses to enter in the Academy of Artillery of
Segovia. Years later, referring to this part of his life, he would say that it
started in Madrid:
‘A scientific career that I
didn’t complete because I lacked vocation for it’
He returned to Santander
and in 1855 his mother died and he became ill with cholera. Due to both of
these things he was depressed and listless, in spite of overcoming his illness.
Nest year he got a neurasthenic that left him without desire for doing anything
and obliged his family to send him to Andalucía where he stayed for the
greatest part of the year 1857.
When the diary ‘La Abeja
Montañesa’ appeared in Santander he started a career as a journalist. There he
published without signing or, most of the time, with the pseudonym Paredes,
theatre reviews and costume sketches (costume: a movement that represents that
daily activities of the people).
Also he started in 1888 the
weekly newspaper ‘El Tio Cayetano’. He tried his luck at the theatre with the
plays ‘Tanto tienes, tanto vales (1861)’, ‘Palos en seco (1861)’, ‘Marchar con
el siglo (1863)’ and ‘Mundo, amor y vanidad (1863)’, that unfortunately weren’t
very successful. These works were published in 1869 with the title ‘Ensayos
dramáticos’.
He was already a
correspondent of the Spanish Royal Academy of Language since 1872 and in 1897
he read hi speech as a numbered member.
His more importants works
were: ‘Escenas montañesas’ ‘El Museo Universal Escenas de la vida, colección de
cuentos y cuadros de costumbres’, ‘Blasones y talegas’, ‘Los hombres de pro’ (a
work oriented to his political life), ‘Sotileza’ y ‘Peñas Arriba’. His works
have the characteristic of being centered on life in the mountains with the
exception of ‘Sotileza’.
He is commemorated with a
street in Torrelavega that caries his name.
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