Echegaray y Eizaguirre, José, << ay chay gah RY ee ay thah GEER ray, hoh ZAY >> (1832-1916), was the first important modern Spanish dramatist. He shared the 1904 Nobel Prize for literature with French poet Frédéric Mistral.
Echegaray’s early plays were romantic melodramas. Later in his career, he turned to more realistic dramas that explored social problems. His works are rarely performed today because they are considered dated and overblown. However, he achieved enormous popularity during his lifetime and had a great influence on Spanish theater because of his technical skill. In addition, Echegaray has been praised as an innovative stylist who captured in his passionate plays some of the high tension of the times in which he lived.
Echegaray was born on April 19, 1832, in Madrid, Spain. He trained as a mathematician, and he became a professor of mathematics at the School of Civil Engineering in Madrid while he was still in his early 20’s. He entered government service in 1868 and was appointed minister of finance in 1874. As minister, Echegaray helped establish the Bank of Spain, which performs financial services for the Spanish government.
Echegaray did not turn to playwriting until he was 42 but still wrote about 70 plays. The best known include Madman or Saint (1877) and The Great Go-Between (1881). In the first play, society condemns the central character as insane for his honesty in trying to return his fortune to its rightful owners. In the second play, the principal characters are destroyed by slander. Echegaray died on Sept. 4, 1916.
