“The very land of romance”: Original Compositions on Spain and the Spanish in The Southern Literary Messenger (1834-1864)

Abstract

The cultural relationship between the United States and Spain during the first half of the 19 th century was strong. Prompted perhaps by the memory of Spanish support for colonials during the American Revolutionary War (1776-1783), the influence of Spanish letters, in particular the novel Don Quixote, on American authors, including Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Hugh Henry Brackenridge (1748-1816) and Theodore Irving, among others, was notable. 2 Spanish culture was also an important force in early American periodicals, in particular in the literary journal The Southern Literary Messenger. The Messenger, published in Richmond, Virginia and which ran from 1834 to 1864 was one of the beacons of American antebellum culture. 3 Among its editors, we can count major American literary figures of the period: