Castalia

Santa Cruz de Tenerife · Category: Memory · Subcategory: Sites of memory · Year: 1917

The magazine Castalia was one of the most important literary and artistic publications edited in Santa Cruz. Under the subtitle of a magazine of "literature, art, island life," Castalia , with its short run of barely one year and 22 issues, left its mark on Santa Cruz society.

As a rule, literary press in Santa Cruz was always ephemeral. The reading public was as scarce as it was inconsistent. However, the lack of quantity and duration in its development did not imply low quality; on the contrary, passion and enthusiasm resulted in a set of artistic-literary publications among the best in the entire country.

The oldest worthy of mention was La Aurora , a weekly of literature and art, which was in circulation between 1847 and 1848. The editorial weight was carried by José Desiré Dugour, supported by a valuable team of collaborators, including the poet Manuel Marrero Torres, Ignacio Negrín, and Sabino Berthelot. It was followed by El Ramillete de Canarias , a "weekly of literature," which had an even shorter existence, between 1866 and 1867, with 35 issues published in which it was dedicated to "spreading throughout the Canary Islands the sacred cult of fine letters," with historical and biographical texts of interest. Slightly later, in 1878, the excellent Revista de Canarias appeared, founded and directed by Elías Zerolo, which on a fortnightly basis was dedicated to encyclopaedic topics with a specifically Canarian focus. Literary contributions for this magazine came from pens of the calibre of Nicolás Estévanez, Jose M. Pulido, José Tabares Bartlett, among others. After its director moved to Paris, Patricio Estévanez took over its legacy, giving the publication a turn and renaming it Ilustración de Canarias (1882-1883), innovating with more abundant graphic information. Artes y Letras , a "ten-day illustrated magazine of literature, art and sciences," was another publication that, edited by the Diario de Tenerife throughout 1903, filled the space demanded by readers with literary and artistic interests; collaborators included Nicolás Estévanez, Manuel Verdugo, Ramón Gil-Roldán, Isaac Viera, Mario Arozena, Secundino Delgado, and Diego Crosa.

Over the years, literary aspirations gained greater weight in the field of serial publications, as is already recognisable in the case of the weekly Castalia . Edited from 7 January 1917 at the Benítez printing house, located on San Francisco street, opposite the church of the same name, it was under the direction of Luis Rodríguez Figueroa, with Ildefonso Maffiotte as chief editor.

Castalia was something like a spokesperson for the modernist movement on the island. It was founded in 1917 by Ildefonso Maffiote and Luis Rodríguez Figueroa, who gathered contributions from the calibre of Tabares Bartlett, Matías Real, Manuel Verdugo, Tomás Morales, Saulo Torón, Alonso Quesada, and even authors from the peninsula such as Emilio Carrére and Manuel Machado. It also featured a dense repertoire of illustrations made by the finest island draftsmen of the moment: Manuel Reyes Brito, Miguel Borges Salas, Diego Crosa Costa, Emilia Mesa Marrero, Juan Davó Rodríguez, Pedro Guezala, and Francisco Bonnín. Furthermore, the weekly made room for island musical interests by inserting scores from both established and novice authors.

The magazine combined, in a very difficult time (in the midst of the First World War), the deeply rooted regionalist ideal in this land with the cosmopolitan vocation of the islands, reflected in its pages by divergent but complementary aesthetic currents. After 22 issues, on 20 August 1917, the magazine ceased publication. Its life was short (eight months) but very intense.

Castalia set the pattern for what the new literary magazines to come would be: La Rosa de Los Vientos (1927-1928) and the essential Gaceta de Arte (1932-1936).

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