Joaquin Dicenta

Joaquín Dicenta Benedicto (Calatayud, February 3, 1862-Alicante, February 21, 1917) was a Spanish writer and journalist. He cultivated the theater, as well as poetry and naturalistic narration. He was the father of the playwright and poet of the same name and of the actor Manuel Dicenta.

Biography

Early Years

The son of an army lieutenant colonel, he was born by pure chance in Calatayud when his family was moving from Alicante to Vitoria. In the Third Carlist War his father was wounded in the head, who lost his mind as a result of the brain damage, and the family returned to Alicante, where the sick father lived for a few years until he died, since his wife did not he wanted to have him admitted. In this city he spent his childhood, the future writer; there he studied secondary education with Rafael Altamira and Carlos Arniches, although others affirm that he actually studied in Madrid with the Piarists of Getafe.

He entered the Artillery Academy of Segovia, but was expelled from it in 1878, because of his bohemian life and his fondness for alcohol and women. He then lived poorly in the suburbs and marginal environments of Madrid, frequenting a low-life tabernacle called "La Estufa", trying to study law and entering republican and democratic circles, and experienced the influence of utopian socialism and Krausism, and specifically by Francisco Giner de los Rios. In Madrid, likewise, he met who would be his great friend, the unfortunate poet and journalist Manuel Paso, who would die of alcoholism in his youth. He collaborated in the newspaper El Liberal and published his first poems in the magazine Eden .

Playwright

He premiered his first drama in 1888, thanks to the protection of Manuel Tamayo, and wrote numerous novels, short stories, and plays in prose and verse. He also wrote poetry, yet to be collected and studied, and in his poem Prometheus of 1885 he already declared his atheism. After a brief and frustrated marriage, society marginalized him because he had joined a gypsy woman, the Andalusian bailaora Amparo de Triana, who abandoned the profession to live with the haughty, independent and quarrelsome poet.

Emilio Thuillier and Juana Martínez in a representation of Juan José, 1895

His luck changed with the international success of his drama Juan José, his most important dramatic work, which, having been rejected by the company of Ceferino Palencia and María Tubau, would become one of the most represented works in Spain before the civil war. It was premiered with great success at the Teatro de la Comedia in Madrid in 1895. With this piece the social drama in Spain was inaugurated, actually a melodrama about jealousy that takes place in a tavern frequented by bricklayers and with a lot of denunciation content social. It created theatrical traditions such as performing every first of May in Alicante. However, it is considered a more genuine piece of social drama Aurora, premiered in 1902, cataloged as "authentic revolutionary and progressive theater". Joaquín Dicenta's dialogues try to reproduce the normal speech of the Madrid proletariat; In that sense, he is authentic, although his authenticity is much more realistic than, for example, the stylized character found in Arniches' dramatic work. On November 11, 1895, he received a tribute from Madrid writers and journalists. In 1889, Dicenta founded with Ruperto Chapí the Society of Authors, a precursor entity of the General Society of Authors and Publishers. In 1904 he translated Santiago Rusiñol's drama, El místic (1903), from Catalan into Spanish.

Journalistic work

Caricatured in Don Quixote (1902)

Dicenta directed the weekly Germinal (1897), which brought together quite a few authors of naturalism, or rather an eclectic group of honest utopians, republicans and independent anticlericals who called themselves New People, dissatisfied with the Spanish society of that time: Ricardo Fuente, Antonio Palomero, Rafael Delorme, Ernesto Bark, Jurado de la Parra, Ricardo Yesares, Miguel and Alejandro Sawa, Manuel Paso, Eduardo Zamacois, Urbano González Serrano, Nicolás Salmerón and A. from Santaclara. Other more well-known authors were added to these, such as Ramiro de Maeztu (sometimes signing Rotuney), Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, Pío Baroja and Jacinto Benavente. The magazine published essays, poetry and literature of social content. Germinal came to light on April 30, 1897 and extended its life by two years; Dicenta was the editor-in-chief until issue #24; later he was replaced by Nicolás Salmerón y García. In 1903 it was published again as an afternoon newspaper, but already far removed from the initial content and interests.

Dicenta participated both in the creation and founding as well as in the writing of most of the newspapers and magazines of its time, between the end of the century XIX and the beginning of the XX. His signature has been considered one of the best known for the readers and recognized by their colleagues, were "radical, conservative, generalist or literary"; In parallel, his provocative journalistic work is among the most denounced, provocative and generating enemies. Dicenta directed two of the most important publications of the time, the republican newspaper El País and the magazine Germinal.

Last years

Joaquín Diceta, photographed by Christian Franzen (c. 1908).

Portrait of the playwright Joaquín Diceta (1905), by Ramón Casas.

Dicenta was a councilor for the Madrid City Council, when in May 1909 he was one of the two Republican councilors elected for the district of Latina together with José María de la Torre Murillo, in addition to being the candidate with the most votes received in the whole city.

At the end of 1916, he returned to Alicante seriously ill and died shortly after; As a confessed atheist, he was buried in the civil cemetery of San Blas in that Levantine city, although his remains were later transferred to the Alicante cemetery of Nuestra Señora del Remedio, very close to his good friend Antonio Rico Cabot.

It has a dedicated street in the Ventilla neighborhood and a public school near the Lucero metro, both in Madrid.

Semblance

They say about 1905 in New World

His condition as a victim of excessive vitality, a voluptuous love life and an almost sick passion for risk and struggle, created the legend of his nocturnal and adventurous personality, and the reality of his ideology and his work.

The poet and diplomat Rubén Darío describes their friendship as follows: «With Joaquín Dicenta we were very intimate companions, Apollonian and nocturnal. Apart from my sleeplessness and expansions as a night owl, I witnessed palatine religious festivals; we had indescribable culinary encounters, with ambrosia and especially nectars, with the great don Ramón María del Valle-Inclán". Azorín and Miguel de Unamuno criticized his dissipated life and his fondness for frequenting "the underworld and thugs". although the first of them —his countryman José Martínez Ruiz— defined him as a representative of "popular passion, impetus, romantic and free lyricism".

He also had declared adversaries such as Julio Camba, who titled the article he dedicated to him in La Anarquia literaria, in July 1905, titled "A national calamity", where he explained that "He wrote brilliant and substantial chronicles in El Liberal and competed with Mariano de Cavia in drunkenness".

On the contrary, he was praised by Ramiro de Maeztu and Pedro de Répide. Eduardo Zamacois would write that «Dicenta's life is an unleashed gale; the seductive demon of the unexpected guides his steps; everything seduces him; over his nights and his days, disorder has lit his red lamp eternally ». Precisely, on the day of the premiere of his greatest popular success, the drama Juan José, Zamacois recounts that "He arrived bleeding: someone had hit him with a couple of canes on the head", and adds that Dicenta he liked fights. "In his biography there are stab wounds, a kidnapping, a suicide." The final definition of Zamacois: «vain, informal, illogical, elusive and cordial. It was youth."

They say caricatured by Bagaria (Spain, 1917) in an illustration published after his death

Another of his most quoted anecdotes and that occurred in one of many nocturnal parties, tells that he cut Valle's long hair, and the gross Galician was so shorn that he had to shave his skull (as shown by some photos of the time).

There has also been news that he organized gatherings "every Saturday at his house at number 37 Mendizábal street". A meeting that Zamacois talks about in an article in El Diván, mentioning how Valle-Inclán regulars, Ernesto Bark, Antonio Palomero, Ricardo Fuente and Rafael Delorme.

Among the innumerable descriptions and portraits that were made of him during his life and after his death (before he was forgotten), we can mention that of his friend and also a journalist Luis Bonafoux, who defines him like this in the prologue to Spoliarium:

...the same in public life as in the private, Joaquín Díta forms in the ranks of that vanguard of revolutionaries who are first sublime children who do not look at yesterday or care about the morning; then generous young people who defeat the talent as they overthrow the life, and finally combatants who, dusty and bleeding, march well into the mountain of the ideal.

Luis Bonafoux

In the words of Enrique Díez Canedo «But Dicenta, through the ages, was a romantic. Not a romantic in chain mail or a lute on his back: Joaquín Dicenta was a romantic in a blouse».

The Dicenta

Joaquín Diceta with a daughter of his in arms (The Sphere, 1914)

The saga started by Joaquín Dicenta (1862-1917) would be substantially continued by two main branches (since his womanizing nature has been documented). On the side of his son Joaquín Dicenta Alonso (1893-1967) —one of the two had with Resurrección Alonso, singer of the Real -, would later extend to his grandson José Fernando Dicenta (1929-1984).

On the other hand, Manuel Dicenta (1905-1974), father of Daniel Dicenta (1937-2014), who married actress Lola Herrera (1935) would continue his union with actress Consuelo Badillo., whose daughter would be Natalia Dicenta (1962). Another son of Manuel's late marriage, and consequently Daniel Dicenta's half-brother, would be Jacobo Dicenta, born in 1972 (two years before his father's death).

Work

• 

  He is. (No. 28 of The Contemporary1909). Cover of Romero Calvet.
  Werther's Suicide: Dramatic Work, 1888 (Debut at the Teatro de la Princesa on February 23, 1888, with Rafael Calvo as protagonist)
• Spoliarivm, Madrid, 1888
• The Best Law: Dramatic Work, Madrid: José Rodríguez, 1889
• The irresponsible: drama in three acts and verse, Madrid: Florencio Fiscovich, 1890. Released on November 27, 1890 at the Spanish Theatre
• Spoliarivm: Social paintings, Madrid: Fernando Fe, 1891 (2.a ed.)
• The irresponsible: Dramatic work 1891
• Hones and life, Madrid: José Rodríguez, 1891 (Debut at the Teatro Principal de Zaragoza, the night of April 18, 1891)
• Sevillanas, 1892
• Black ink, Madrid: F. Fe, 1892 (T. Muñoz Lucea and A. Pons drawings)
• Rebellion(short novel), 1893
• The Duke of Gandy: lyric drama in three acts and an epilogue in verse music by the teachers Antonio Llanos and Ruperto Chapí, Madrid: Florencio Fiscowich. 1894 (2.a ed.)
• Luciano, Madrid: José Rodríguez, Madrid, 1894
• The assistants, 1895
• Juan José, 1895
• Juan José in chapel, 1896
• The feudal lord, 1896
• From the battle, 1896

Surviving (No. 14 of The Teatral Novel1917). Tovar's cover.

• Curro Vargas: zarzuela, 1898
• Chronicles, Madrid: Fernando Fe, 1898
• Lorenzo, 1899
• Uncle Gervasio: monologist in an act and in original prose. Premiere at the Parish Theatre on March 12, 1900, Madrid, 1900
• The bronze lion: comedy in prose, Madrid, 1900 (Debut at the Teatro Príncipe de Alicante on April 30, 1900)
• The cortijera, 1900
• Aurora: drama in three acts and prose Barcelona, 1902 (Debut at the Theatre of Catalonia on June 12, 1902)
• Train: comedy in an act inspired by a French story Premiere at the Teatro de la Alhambra on the night of November 29, 1902, Madrid, 1902
• Luciano, Madrid: Velasco, 1903 (2.a ed.)
• Spins and lead, Madrid, 1903
• Come on!, 1904
• Juan Francisco: lyric drama in three acts and in original verse with music by the master Ruperto Chapí: premiered with great success at the Teatro Price on December 22, 1904, Madrid, 1904
• Raimundo Lulio, 1904
• Stone in stone Cartagena: Graphic Arts of Levante, 1904, 280 p.
• 

  The burned house (n. 109) Illustrated Week). Agustin's cover.
  The estate of the dead, 1904
• The conversion of Mañara: comedy, Madrid, 1905 (Debut at the Cervantes Theatre in Malaga on December 2, 1905)
• Traps, 1905
• The waltz of the shadows, 1905
• Between rocks: zarzuela, Madrid: Sociedad de Autores Españoles, 1905 (Música del Maestro Chapí)
• Love of artists: comedy in four acts and in original prose...: Premiere at the Teatro de San Fernando de Segovia on May 14, 1906, Madrid, 1906
• From the roses, 1906
• Daniel: drama in four acts and in original prose...: Premiere at the Teatro Español on March 7, 1907, Madrid, 1907
• Lorenza: starts in three acts and in original prose...: Premiere at the Teatro Español on the night of December 12, 1907, Madrid, 1907
• Marinera: monologue in an act and in original prose...: Premiere at the Teatro de la Princesa on February 11, 1907, Madrid, 1907
• The gañanía / novel by...; illustrations by Menéndez, Madrid: The Weekly Story, 1908
• Confession: comedy in an original act and prose, Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores, 1908
• The crime of yesterday1908
• The majes of the plant1908
• Tales: Dedicatory.- The nest of sparrows.- The epic of a cingar.- At the station.- Black Anniversary, Madrid, 1909
• The three mocked husbands: wrapped in three paintings and a prologue, in verse inspired by the novel by Tirso de Molina. Music by Maestro Lleó, Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores, 1909
• Confession1909
• The idyllic of Pedrin(novela), 1910
• Rebellion, Barcelona: E. Domenech, 1910, 215 p.
• By Britain, Madrid: Antonio Garrido, 1910
• Report on the reorganization of the municipal teaching of Madrid, Madrid: Imprenta Municipal, 1910
• Which one of the two? 1911
• Uncle Quico, 1911
• A lesson in love, 1911
• Galerna Madrid: Renaissance, 1911 (Col. Popular Library) -It contains: Galerna; La gañanía; Del camino; A lyric of change-
• Redention!, 1912
• Under the myths, 1912
• From time to time, Madrid: Successors of Hernando, 1912
• The barbarians, Madrid: Renaissance, 1912, 224 p.
• The city of lead, (novela) 1913
• Come on! Barcelona, 1913
• Mystical: drama in four acts and prose written in Catalan by Santiago Rusiñol; translated into Spanish by..., Madrid: Sociedad de Autores Españoles, 1913
• Incarnation, 1913
• Sunset, 1913
• Winter Sun, 1913
• Seas of Spain, Madrid: Renaissance, 1913
• The bottom ones, 1913
• Estrellita de Alba(novela), 1914
• The yellow passport(novela), 1914
• Evil., 1914
• Bad horseshoe, 1914
• Yesterday's crime: drama in three acts and prose / original de..., Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores, 1915
• Love of artists: comedy in four acts and prose / original de..., Madrid: Sociedad General de Autores, 1915
• The irresponsible: drama in three acts and in original verse of...: Premiere with extraordinary success in the Spanish Theatre of Madrid, the night of November 27, 1890, Barcelona: Biblioteca "Teatro Mundial", 1915
• My Venus, 1915
• Light, 1915
• Between two lights, 1915
• The idyllic of Pedrin, 1915
• Captain Anselmo, 1915
• Wherter's suicide: drama in four acts and in original verse...: Premiere with extraordinary applause on the night of February 23, 1888 at the Teatro de la Princesa in Madrid, Barcelona: Biblioteca "Teatro Mundial", 1916
• The Potential(novela), 1916
• Garcés de Marsilla(novela), 1916
• New people, 1916
• Who were you?, 1916
• Interior, 1916
• The Caudillo(novela), 1916
• Under the myths, Barcelona: Millá y Piñol, 1916
• Juan José(novela), 1917
• Women(novela), 1917
• Spike flower, 1917
• The crime of yesterday, Madrid: Prensa Popular, 1917
• The feudal lord, Madrid: Prensa Popular, 1917
• Surviving, Madrid: Prensa Popular, 1917 (Col. La Novela Teatral)
• The wolf, Madrid: Prensa Popular, 1917
• The life that happens, Madrid, 1917
• The promise. (Obra póstuma): lyric-dramatic legend in five days, inspired by a story by Gustavo A. Bécquer: With the author's latest autograph, Madrid: Hernando Successors, 1917
• Paradise lost: (novela), Madrid: Hernando, 1917.
• conjunctions (story)
• The Cujito (story)
• The disdain of John (story)
• Freedom (story)
• Madroño (story)
• Christmas Evestory)
• An idyll in a cage (story)
• One more triumph (story)