The Journalistic Romance of Jaime Campmany as a Literary Journalism Model in Spain in the Late 20th Century

In this article, the last period of the career of journalist Jaime Campmany (1925-2005) is revealed in broad strokes. This period covers the last three decades of the last century. We highlight what we consider one of the most original contributions to the literary journalism of those times: ‘the journalistic romances’, opinion columns written in hendecasyllables. It was a creative way of giving opinions and versifying 1) the current time in a period of the history of Spain and 2) journalism in which the opinion column was being developed wholeheartedly and soulfully, owing to the democracy and freedom achieved. This genre enjoyed such supremacy that some authors considered this a phase that began approximately in 1975, when a new type of journalism began to take shape, with columns rapidly proliferating. In this article, the characteristics of Campmany’s romances have been analyzed and summarized into three points: classic lineage (a vast culture), lexical virtuosity (the development of educated and popular terms), and humourism (sarcasm and irony in arguments). With these theoretical premises, we contribute further a sample of five romances to exemplify and prove what has been explained, apart from emphasizing that Campmany rescued and revised the tradition of journalists who versify.