The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001-07.
Benavente y Martínez, Jacinto
(häthn´t b´´nävn´t märt´nth) (KEY) , 18661954, Spanish dramatist, b. Madrid. He was awarded the 1922 Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known play is Los intereses creados (1907, tr. Bonds of Interest, 1917), a farce written on the pattern of the Italian commedia dellarte. In 1916 he wrote a second part to this play, La ciudad alegre y confiada [the gay and confident city]. La malquerida (1913, tr. The Passion Flower, 1920), on the Phaedra theme, was popular with the public and the critics. His plays fall into four classes: social satires, psychological dramas, childrens plays, and allegorical-morality plays. He was at his best in sparkling satires of aristocratic and upper middle-class life.