Jose Zorrilla y Moral

Zorrilla y Moral, José (1817–93), Spanish poet and dramatist of the Romantic movement. His best known play is Don Juan Tenorio (1844), which added yet another version to the numerous interpretations of the Don Juan legend. It is still performed in Spanish theatres, traditionally on All Saints' Day (1 Nov.). Zorrilla also wrote comedies, tragedies, and historical plays. Of the last the best known are El zapatero y el rey (The Cobbler and the King, 1840–1), in two parts, El puñal del Godo (1842), and Traidor, inconfeso y martír (1849), based on the life of a pretender to the throne of Portugal.

José Zorrilla y Moral , 1817-93, Spanish poet and dramatist. His works and life epitomized the brief period of Spanish romanticism. One of the most honored of Spanish writers, he was nevertheless continually impoverished. Among his many plays Don Juan Tenorio (1844) is a Spanish favorite, as is El zapatero y el rey [the shoemaker and the king] (1840-42). He gathered and reconstructed many legends in Cantos del trovador (1841), Granada (1852), and other volumes of verse and also wrote an interesting autobiography (1880-83).