Echegaray, José [key], 1832–1916, Spanish dramatist, mathematician, physicist, economist, and politician. He taught science, practiced engineering, and devoted his later life to economics and politics, holding several cabinet posts. From 1874 to 1905, Echegaray wrote 68 plays, becoming the leading Spanish playwright of his day. He shared the 1904 Nobel Prize in Literature with Frédéric Mistral. Among his best-known works are O locura o santidad (1876, tr. Folly or Saintliness, 1895) and El gran Galeoto (1881, tr. The Great Galeoto, 1895). Echegaray's early plays were chiefly romantic; as the realistic problem play came into vogue, however, he adapted his work to the prevailing style, and his melodramatic theater became satiric and sensational in tone.
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