ZORRILLA y MORAL, José. - Spanish poet, b. at Valladolid on 21 February 1817, d. at Madrid on 23 January 1893.
Having abandoned the study of law in order to devote himself to literature and politics, he took a firm stand against absolutism, risking deportation. Leaving Spain because of family disputes, he went to France, whence he proceeded to Mexico, where he directed the national theatre. In 1860 he returned to his homeland and, in 1889, received the poet’s crown in the Alcázar of Granada.
He cultivated lyric, epic, and dramatic poetry. A man of very firm religious convictions, he celebrated, in collaboration with the Venezuelan García de Quevedo, the glories of the Mother of God in the work Maria, corona poetica de la Virgen. In the poem Granada he recalled the reconquest of the city by Ferdinand the Catholic. An outstanding testimony to his activity as a playwright is the drama Don Juan Tenorio, a reworking of the Molinian theme, raised to national significance. He was a spontaneous poet, of inexhaustible inspiration and intense evocative power.