Seraf - Reference

Scholar, costumbrista, bibliophile, and Arabist, born in Málaga, S Spain. He studied law in Granada, and later held influential positions in the nation, including those of state councillor and senator. His early writings were signed ‘Safinio’, but later he adopted the pseudonym ‘El Solitario’. His first book, Poesías del Solitario (1831), consisted mainly of satirical verses, though his best poem is an elegy on the death of the Duquesa de Frías. He contributed to Cartas españolas (1831–2) and the Escenas andaluzas (1847) which made his reputation as an enthusiastic regional writer midway between the plain, sentimental writing of Ramón de Mesonero Romanos and the more bitter social satire of Luis Mariano de Larra. He composed an unfinished history De la conquista y pérdida de Portugal (2 vols, 1885) and an unsatisfactory historical novel, Cristianos y moriscos: leyenda lastimosa (1838).

Serafin Estebanez Calderon (27 December 1799–5 February 1867) was a Spanish author, best known by the pseudonym of El Solitario. He obtained an exaggerated reputation as an Arabic scholar, and played a minor part in the political movements of his time. His most interesting work, Escenas andaluzas (1847), is in an affected style, the vocabulary being partly archaic and partly provincial; Estebanez Calderon is also the author of an unfinished history, De la conquista y pirdida de Portugal (1883), issued posthumously under the editorship of his nephew, Antonio Canovas del Castillo.

Reference

This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.