20th Century Western Literature and Thought: Movements and Styles

Posted on Oct 10, 2024 in Latin

Historical periods of the twentieth century

Throughout the twentieth century, the Western world is undergoing a profound transformation. Events that marked its history were the two world wars, the Russian Revolution and the cold outside.

Around the above events establishes the following historical periods:

• Of the century until the First World War (1900-1914). Period of economic expansion or artistic splendor. Develop workers’ movements, and intellectuals living the crisis of bourgeois consciousness.
• World War I (1914-1918), caused by colonial rivalry, which ended with the Paris Conference (1920), with her global hegemony passes from Europe to America. Meanwhile, in Russia in 1917 had produced the communist revolution.
• The interwar period (1920-1939). It begins with the economic exuberance of the Roaring Twenties. Breakneck industrialization creates social tensions that erupted after the great crash of 1929. In the 1930s and totalitarianism are born at the same time, lose popular support for liberal democracies.
• The Second World War (1939-1945). The German invasion of Poland leads to widespread conflict. The U.S. Intervention put an end to the war with atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and starts the nuclear age.
• The postwar period. International agreements after the war divided the Western world into two antagonistic blocs: the communist and capitalist, competing in the arms and space taxis. Is the Cold War.

In the 1960s there is a tension between the blocks. With economic development and growth of the middle class consumer society begins, which acquire a great power the media. Dissatisfaction with the evils of consumerism is collected by the new critical movements, and counter-revolutionaries. Both trends were seen in France May 68.

The energy crisis of the 1970s, encourages a certain conservatism, skepticism of so-called spirit postmodern, relativistic to the political ideologies and utopias.

• The end of the two blocks. The political landscape was transformed after the demise of the Berlin Wall (1989) and German unification (1990).

Panorama of the twentieth century thought

In the twentieth century can be identified three main schools of thought: existentialism, psychoanalysis and Marxism, trends are not mutually exclusive and often appear mixed.

• Existentialism comes from irrational thinking and vital of the late nineteenth century, thinkers such as Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Bergson. Martin Heidegger is the top representative in the twentieth century. Believes that the individual, which refers to the death that takes you to nothing, you must build your destination even when no steady values, hence arises the feeling of anguish and despair to freedom and suffering.
• The psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud discovered the existence of the subconscious, the source of the impulses repressed by social norms or moral. The subconscious is expressed through symbols when reason is not exercised its control, as in a dream. According to Freud, behavior and artistic creation are rooted in the subconscious.
• Marxism, based on the thinking of Karl Marx, is intended as a method for interpreting the social functioning from a materialist and scientific perspective. Considers that a society is defined by its mode of economic production, and that evolves through class struggle. For Marxism, communism is the last stage of social evolution, then disappear property and class struggle. At the end of the twentieth century, as opposed to scientific or rationalistic interpretations, other trends are born more skeptical or relativist: modern or postmodern thought, which supports the limitation of the rational to interpret broadly the world.

The aesthetics of the twentieth century

Throughout the twentieth century, numerous artistic currents in quick succession. Among them are three major trends: the existential, experimental and social.

• The art reflects the fear of existential meaning of life and despair over the pain and death. Was especially at the beginning of the century and after the Second World War. Some authors are representative of existentialism Kafka, the French existentialists of the 1950s Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, and Spain, writers of the Generation of 98 and after the war.
• The experimental art is characterized by the desire to break with the above and the search for original innovations. This trend culminates in the vanguard of the 1920s and 1960. The experimental literature is developed in the twenties, poets, novelists and playwrights, in the 1950s, the theater of the absurd, and from 1960 to 1970, counterculture trends. In Spain, the avant-garde influence on the Generation of ’27 and since the 1960s.
• Social or committed art tends to report the social or political problems. In the twentieth century unfolds, above all, linked to Marxism and in periods of conflict: during the 1930s Depression highlighted B. Brecht and the American Lost Generation; after World War II, Italian neo-realism and the realistic theater of angry young Englishmen. In communist countries is promoted socialist realism epitomized M. Gorki. In Spain represent that current poets Rafael Alberti and Miguel Hernández and César Vallejo Hispanic and Pablo Neruda. Since 1950, other authors did social literature.

Twentieth century in Spain

The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) a profound impact on twentieth century. Around it is configured historical periods of the century:

From 1900 to the Civil War (1900-1936) succeed the regency of Maria. Cristina, the reign of Alfonso XII, the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and the Second Republic.

After the Civil War, a comparison between the Franco (1939-1976) and democracy.

From 1900 to the Civil War (1900-1936)

• The restoration of the Bourbon monarchy ended in 1902 with the regency of Maria. Cristina. During this period, Spain lost the last overseas colonies: Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
• The reign of Alfonso XII (1902-1931) is marked pro social and regional tensions, which are intensified since the First World War, with clashes between employers and labor unions, and the war in Morocco.
• The dictatorship of Primo de Rivera (1923-1930) begins with a coup, suspending the constitution and political freedoms. After the municipal elections of 1931, with the victory of the Republican parties, the Republic is proclaimed and the king went into exile.
• The Second Republic (1931-1936) is a period of great instability. From start to profound changes, but found resistance from conservative groups and more radical social sectors.
• Civil War (1936-1939) begins with a military revolt against the republican government and is the most tragic period of the century.

After the Civil War

• Franco (1939-1975). In this long period there are two stages:
  • The 1940s and 1950s are defined by the climate of war and international isolation. The country takes to recover from the disasters of the war under an authoritarian regime that practiced political repression.
  • Since the 1960s, with economic development and participation in international organizations, they attenuate the dictatorial ways and started a degree of liberalization.
• Democracy (since 1978). After the transition (1975-1978), in which groups and anti-Franco Franco pacts acceptance of the monarchy, the dissolution of the political organs of the dictatorship and the drafting of a Constitution (1978), begin democratic elections. This involves the integration in Europe and international agencies.

Modernism

Like other movements of the period, modernism manifests itself as a vital attitude of rebellion and a desire to renew all areas of life and art.

As an aesthetic movement, modernism is related to the world of bohemia, which implies a rejection of social and moral norms, the dropping-out, the taste for provocation and contempt for the vulgarity and mediocrity.

Curdles modernist literature especially poetry and poetic prose genres which shows a new poetic language and intimate romantic themes.

Among the modernists, include Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Valle-Inclán, and the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío, the best known modernist poet.

All European culture of late nineteenth century shines a climate of spiritual disorientation directly related to the nascent existentialism, is the malaise of the so-called crisis of European consciousness of the century.

In Spain, this concern is manifested through Modernism and the Generation of 98, which share common traits among themselves and with other European movements of the century. Thus, the thought reveal the traces of vitalism of Nietzsche, existentialism of Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer’s pessimism, and in art, are influenced by impressionism, symbolism and writers like Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Ibsen or Maeterlinck.

In the culture of Castilian language, modernism was expressed primarily through literature and is characterized by:

• The diversity of influences:
• From the Romantics, especially Becquer and Rosalia de Castro, comes the attitude of rejection of reality, the individualism and subjectivism, and the preference for decaying environments and existential issues.
• In French poetry, and symbolism Parnassianism, inherits a taste for formal perfection, the use of evocative symbols and identification with the feelings and the landscape.
• Of American modernism, especially Rubén Darío, contains the brightness and sensuality.
• The themes of the romantic:
• The rejection and the uprooting of this, which is resolved by avoidance or intimacy.
• Existential concerns: anxiety and the desire to annihilate the consciousness that causes pain and suffering.
• The modernist style was a major renovation of the metric (using lines and stanzas unusual: dodecasyllabic, Alexandrian, combinations of broken foot, free verse …), language and expressive resources.

Overall, the literature is very sensory musicality, chromaticism and plasticity are achieved through various procedures.

• By phonic resources: experimenting with the distribution of accents, internal rhyme, alliteration, anaphora, parallelism …
• The lexicon is enriched with learned words, evocative and exotic with an abundance of adjectives.
• The resources are more characteristic of modernism suggestive symbols and synaesthesia, which mixes various sensory references.
• The genres preferred by the modernists are the lyrical and poetic prose.
• The most important modernist writers were identified as Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Valle-Inclan and Rubén Darío, and Manuel Machado, Salvador Rueda and Francisco Villaespesa.

The group of 98 or the “generation of 98”

The name Generation of 98 refers to a group of writers who, in his youth, expressed deep disappointment at the Restoration Society and proclaimed the need for social regeneration, cultural and aesthetic.

They are inspired by reformist thinkers rather than literary. Start from the critical and evolving to focus on reflection on Spanish society, and to understand the <<alma>> of Spain, are interested in historical and literary origins of Castile.

At the same time, reflect the existential pessimism and subjectivism of the times (crisis of positivism).

The group’s preferred genre is the essay, and worry about achieving a personal style and involvement away from traditionalism.

At present, is usually included in the Group of 98 to Unamuno, Azorín, Baroja and Maeztu. More contentious is the assignment of Antonio Machado and Valle-Inclan’s.

The name Generation of 1913 98 is reported, based on some articles of the writer and thinker Azorín Ortega y Gasset. With that name of the writer concerned Azorín and thinker Ortega y Gasset. With that name referred to a young writers critical of society and the art of his time. These authors are Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, Ramiro de Maetzu, Ruben Dario, M. Del Valle-Inclan, Jacinto Benavente and Azorín himself.

However, after 1905, the members of the group followed trends rather different and, in general, away from their origins and radical reformers. Though the name Generation of ’98 made a fortune, the existence of a literary generation, strictly speaking, has been discussed and even challenged by critics and writers from the start. Among other reasons, by different paths of its components. Hence the name has been proposed Group of 98.

The relationship between modernism and Generation of ’98 has led a varied bibliography. Some scholars defend the opposition between the two movements, others deny that there is a distinct 98 Generation of modernism and, finally, some point shades in between.

The features that characterize the Group of 98 is as follows:

• The background of the group, for their critical attitude toward the present, there are thinkers rather than literary movements: the Enlightenment, Larra, liberal reformers or regeneration of the late nineteenth century and Krausists.

• As for the trajectory, a feature of the group is the evolution from radical youth positions (anarchistic in Baroja, Azorín and Maeztu, and socialists in Unamuno) to conservative positions in his maturity, spiritual or nostalgic: idealism in Unamuno, skepticism Baroja, Azorín conservatism and authoritarianism in Maeztu.

• The initial ethical attitude, social criticism, is a characteristic of the group, and that unlike these modernist authors. Concern for social and cultural problems lead them to reflect on Spanish society. Hence from the many descriptions and reviews of the people, the people and the Hispanic lifestyle.

• The issue arises when they want Spain to understand what defines the country, their identity, ie what is Spain. Unamuno is the one who raised the issue in idealistic terms, speaking of the soul of Spain and Castilla searches, in its landscape, its myths and its historical and literary sources. That explains the interest and the appreciation of the early literature of Castile, the Castilian landscape and the identification between Castile and Spain, which becomes a regular feature of the group.

• Crisis of the century is reflected existential concerns raised by the group: the feeling of anguish, his distrust of reason and inclination towards subjectivism. The issue of will and apathy is repeated in the author’s group and the modernists.

• The aesthetics of the Group of 98 is inclined toward simplicity, sometimes very carefully. They reject the bombastic rhetoric and tone traditionalist, and pursue a personal expression, giving rise to very different styles.

• The genus is the most widely used test, which deals with many different subjects: the history, literature, religion … (Unamuno, and Azorón Maetzu). It also highlights the renewal of the novel (the three previously).

Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

Machado’s work is the culmination of the poetry of the century.

Her career reflects the evolution of the poetry of time, ranging from symbolist modernism to search for new forms of expression, and his style is characterized by simplicity.

Moreover, its intellectual figure exerts a profound influence on writers of the 1950s and 1960s for his poetry and his critical attitude committed during the war.

Life

Born in Seville in a family of educated and liberal (his grandmother was Krausist (liberal) and his father, a noted folklorist). At eight years old he moved to Madrid and studied at the institute that belongs to the Free Institution of Education Krausist. In Soria fell in love and married Leonor Izquierdo, who fell ill and died shortly afterwards, in 1912.

The work

Antonio Machado wrote poetry, prose and drama, but stands as a poet. During his career there are three stages:

• The first stage,
  Solitudes (1903), extended work Solitudes, Galleries and Other Poems (1907), is part of symbolist modernism. This sum of the romantic and French symbolism Verlaine, suggestive and evocative, without the formal brilliance of Reuben or Parnassians.

It is a deeply intimate lyrics, the poet conveys his feelings of sadness and disgust, and cries the emptiness of his present by many symbols: the melancholy of autumn evenings, the old parks, squares and alleys of the old cities.

Machado talks to himself or interprets the messages of nature, like the Romantics, is a poet, medium, capable of understanding the language or wind sources. Galleries of the soul goes diving into her memories, in a clear sometimes ghostly romantic influence.

The recurring theme is time, its passing implacable, the nostalgia of the past and the confusion between the present and the past through memories.

The style, the symbolism is simple and a bit strident sensory, reminiscent of musical chromaticism off soft and symbolic. The metric is decayed, though flexible forms predominate (Silva, arromanzadas (7 and 11) assonance rhyme in pairs) and popular.

• The second stage began with Campos de Castilla (1912). Since 1907, arriving in Soria, Machado began a period less intimate and more historicist, where the soriano landscape takes on a leading role, then match is drawn with the Group of 98, because it shares ideological and eliminates concerns the most beauticians. In general, it is a more descriptive poetry, which reflects a real landscape and, as with the Group of 98, the identification between Castile and Spain Soriano is a pattern. In some lyrical poems also produced identification with the landscape and the poet’s soul, sometimes, the landscape leads to a historical and critical reflection on the great sin Hispanic, envy or cainismo, historical constant showing of the impossibility of living the two Spains. In general. Poems are thoughtful and more rhetorical style, as they appear archaic words or tone that allude to the past epic warrior of Castile.

Complete Poems (1917) extends Campos de Castilla. Leonor cycle includes compositions that are reminiscent of the dead wife, and poetry of the Andalusian theme, which develops a social critique in an ironic tone.

• In the last stage published New Songs (1924), a work that defrauded by their irregular nature. The most interesting aspect lies in the Proverbs and songs, compositions in the form of judgments or popular song themes consonant with the author: relativism, time, the search for God, as a way of life, the criticism of the country … In his later years are also Guiomar songs, love poems, and Poems of war.

Theatre

• The high comedy or <<comedia burguesa>> is a genre that is characterized by current events with a mild criticism and gentle irony, and is expressed in an elegant and distinguished. The most successful author was Jacinto Benavente, notable for the naturalness of the dialogues.

• The poetic drama, which originally was the modernist theater, drifting towards some works inspired by historical romantic drama. Eduardo Marquina and highlight the Machado brothers, who jointly wrote and popular historical dramas.

• The theater manners recreates picturesque surroundings, popular and funny typed language using traditionalist. The Traditionalists were outstanding and the brothers Carlos Arniches Serafin and Joaquin Alvarez Quintero.

Another type of humorous drama of success was that of Pedro Muñoz Seca, creator of Astrakhan, a style that bases its humor in absurd situations and dialogues are absurd.

Valle-Inclán (1866-1936)

He wrote poetry, novels and plays, and always stayed away from realism. Evolved from the modernist style, trim reality, to the grotesque, deforming and torn an aesthetic that is related to Expressionism, the art featuring caricatured reality and exaggerating the most strident and expressive. The scarecrow was a dramatic renovation unique, incorporating the essence of modern anti-realist drama.

Life

He was born in Villanueva de Arosa (Pontevedra) and died in Santiago de Compostela. He was a bohemian and adventurous life. His figure responds to model the extravagant bohemian grown, original and eccentric. He lived intensely bohemian life in Madrid in 1900 and was professor of aesthetics at the School of Fine Arts. He participated in numerous cultural and political, for their protests against Primo de Rivera was imprisoned in 1929. During the Republic was a member of the National Council for Culture, president of Ateneo de Madrid and director of the Spanish Academy in Rome. Al’aristocracia belongs, was at first but became Carlist anarchist, his process was the reverse of others.

The narrative and prose

• The Valle-Inclan’s novel of the modernist aesthetic Sonatas (Autumn Sonata, in summer, Spring and Winter), a model of the Spanish modernist prose. Sentimental adventures narrated by the Marquis of Bradomin, a Don Juan <<feo, Catholic sentimental>>.

The intermediate stage is represented by the Carlist War trilogy, historical novel takes place in a mythical Galicia.

It culminates in the grotesque, with the Iberian ring (composed of the court of miracles and live my own!). In its content, is a historical novel, for its aesthetics, a scarecrow, a vicious caricature of the Elizabethan court. In the same line is Tirano Banderas, South America on a despotic warlord.

• The poetry is collected in Key lyrics, a trilogy made up aromas of Legend, The Passenger and The pipe of kif. The first books are modern, while the latter shows the grotesque aesthetic.

Theatre

Like other genres, the first book, The Marquis de Bradomin, is modernist. The interim period comprises a legendary theater, which has a timeless rural Galicia and characters drawn by great passions (Divine Comedy Barbarian and words), and the farce, set in the boardwalk’s puppet education of princes.

The last phase in the aesthetics of the grotesque, he concentrates his best works: Luces de bohemia, the trilogy Martes de Carnaval (Don Friolera horns, the riches and wealth of the deceased and The Captain’s Daughter), or the Altarpiece of greed, lust and death. Represents a new aesthetic based on the distortion, mixing tragic and grotesque features. Valle-Inclán shows the Hispanic reality beyond appearances, a tragi-grotesque world that does not deserve a tragedy because it has the dignity of the classical world. A sad country without grandeur, and grotesque, but without joy, with the heroes tragic clowns or puppets. According to Valle-Inclan, the scarecrow had already invented Goya y Quevedo, is the distorted image that we return the concave mirrors. Find a detached perspective that goes beyond the laughter and pain, and prevents the public sentimental identification with the work.

In addition to renewing the aesthetics, the absurdity reflects a deeply critical attitude, at a time, the twenties, in which noventayochistas had abandoned the radical positions of his youth.

Luces de bohemia, de Valle-Inclán

Introduction

Appeared in 1920 and was published in 1924 with three new scenes, the II, VI and XI. Valle-Inclan was inspired by the figure of his friend Alejandro Sawa, modernist writer, like the protagonist Max Estrella, lived hard and died poor bohemian, mad and blind in 1909. In the play, Max makes a night tour reveals a society that cruel, violent, unjust and absurd, where there is no room for human dignity. But the tragic grandeur is absent from this world, so it deforms Valle-Inclán by the concave mirrors.

Topic

Luces de bohemia has a corrosive vision of Spain, considered a grotesque deformation of European Civilization. The past referred to the Inquisition, the black legend, Philip II … In connection with this, build up references to events that occurred between 1898 and 1924, a period of social upheaval violently repressed. At the same time, it is a reflection on the literature and a statement of commitment writer.

Structure

The work unit complies with the classical period and, although there is no spatial unit (15 scenes in 13 different environments), overall shows the single area of the city. Bind together the two main characters work or various reasons, including the need for money, the story of the prisoner, the allusions to death, etc. The structure of the work is symmetrical:

• A presentation “approach: the scene I, which stands at Max’s house.
• The crux of the work: <<viaje>> or pilgrimage Madrid by night (Scene II-XI). In turn, this set splits into two symmetric (Scene II-VI and VII-XI), culminating in tragic climax two scenes added in 1924.
• The outcome (stage XII): Max defines the scarecrow at his home.
• A kind of epilogue (Scene XIII, XIV and XV).

Characters

The book features more than fifty characters, some inspired by people at the time. On the whole, are viewed from above as faceless puppets or dolls, ie, deformed by the frightful vision. Tragic heroes are clowns or clowns, but sometimes arise worthy moments in the protagonist and another character.
Only totally saved the Catalan anarchist degradation and mother (scene VI and XI) Valle-Inclán characterized individually and Don Max Latino, with groups without identifying them we find: modernist, shopkeepers, marginal rates, police, etc..

Aesthetics

Valle-Inclán distorts reality by processes which affect language and action:

• It refers to vulgarity with epic and mythological references (eg, the ride of prostitutes) and lowers high settings with images of vulgarity.
• The degradation of the characters often comes from the animalisation (Latin-dog, Ruben-pig), objectification or muñequización (puppets, puppets …)
• Interrupts the action with details that contrast the tragic and the grotesque (clowns aspects of death and in the wake of Max, or some comments on the tragic scene of the mother).
• The speech marked the characters: the pedantry of some intellectuals, the administrative record of the officials, the popular language full of slang and euphemisms, etc.
• The stage settings and characters presented are one of the achievements of the grotesque aesthetic. They are focused, fast and plastics, and builds the noun phrase.

Miguel de Unamuno 1864-1936

It was a known personality and prestige, an active and controversial intellectual who lived intensely the concerns of their time and spread throughout his work. All his literature reflects a strong personality and focuses on regeneration or existential concerns. Therefore, it is a literature which is dominated by ideas, reflective or philosophical, which aims to provoke thought the reader with a passionate style, flexible and very expressive. Although his work encompasses all genres, at the time was known mainly by his essays and newspaper articles.

Work

Unamuno growing all genres: poetry, drama, novels and essays. But, beyond gender, his writings offer a great unit, the repetition of some issues and his personal style.

The themes reveal his life story: the first juvenile stage in which the concerns dominate regeneration and the progression toward life-religious issue at maturity. The style aims expressiveness is so impassioned, vivid and direct, with numerous exclamations, questions and paradoxes.

Drama and poetry

• Unamuno creates a philosophical drama that recalls classical tragedy. It raises the existential issues that obsess directly, minimizing the plot and characters in dramas such as Phaedra, The Sphinx, Soledad …
• Unamuno’s lyric addresses two major issues: the reaction before the landscape and its existential concerns (particularly religious ones). As in other genres, intense style used outside of fashion. From his extensive poetic work, include: Poetry, Rosario lyrical sonnets and ballads of exile.

Novel

Unamuno’s novel deals only with issues of concern and eliminate everything that is essential to the story. Therefore, it is a dense novel, philosophical, and deeply passionate schematic, a nivola, according to the author.

Debugging elements produces findings renovators, for example, delete the references to the landscape and the circumstances surrounding the characters. These in turn express their existential conflict through an extended dialogue or interior monologue of some Ombre, and Fog. Other interesting novels are war Peace, Love and pedagogy, Aunt Tula and San Manuel Bueno, Matir.

Test

Unamuno is always expressed in a vehement tone, then presents his thoughts and experiences harrowing.

Dominated by two themes: reflections on Spain and the existential concerns.

• The theme of Spain appears in his travel books and more pensive tone trials. In its prime stage regenerationist Unamundo criticizes the Spanish reality, and commitment to Europeanization and progress. Subsequently evolves into a spiritual position, left the faith in progress, sees religion as a value of the Hispanic people and goes on to defend the Spanish “in Europe.
• The existential theme puts it in trials as The Tragic Sense of Life, develops the conflict between the “desire for immortality”, which supports religion and reason, which is counter to that desire. Given this conflict, proposed that the struggle between reason and faith, in an agonizing position.

José Martínez Ruiz, Azorín (1873-1967)

Azorín starts in the current literature regenacionista very critical of the social and cultural. In his youth, along with Baroja and Maeztu, I am part of the intellectual group that was crucial to form the Generation of ’98. Subsequently, the evolution leads him to create a work primarily aesthetic and existential. As a writer, creates a personal style, simple, precise and evocative, and the importance gained in his work the theme of time and landscape

Life

Jose Martinez Ruiz Azorin as a pseudonym, the name of the protagonist of his first novels. In his youth he had a radical attitude close to anarchism, with Baroja and Maextu, cone, which formed the Group of Three. Later evolved into conservative and traditionalist positions.

Work

Azorin’s work includes essays, novels and plays, and it revolves around the theme of time, its constant flow, the transience and, in turn, the permanence of landscapes and feelings.

The writer evokes the fleeting reality in a sad and nostalgic, and makes abundant scenic descriptions, mainly of Castile. They reflect the correlations between the landscape and the mood of the writer, in general melancholy. This trait, common to modernist and noventayochistas, stresses the lyricism of the description.

Azorín’s style is a model of precision and clarity, with short sentences juxtaposed or joined by points. The detail of the descriptions gives the impression of slowness. The vocabulary is very rich and includes archaism. The search for a personal style is a central concern of Azorín and, under its apparent simplicity, one discovers a very careful way.

Test

In studies culminate the most characteristic features of Azorin: observation by time, the correspondence between the landscape and their mood, melancholy and detailed descriptions and retailers. Dominated by two themes: the landscape and literary criticism.

• Trials of Spanish landscapes reflect the author’s ideological evolution. In the first, critical social and political aspects of Spanish reality, while the later, such as Castilla, is concerned by the Spanish cultural tradition. Azorín often relive the past of what it describes.
• The critical essays offer their subjective view of Spanish literature. It is interesting to reinterpret those classics. In these tests, discloses the concept of Generation of ’98, which is characterized by his critical attitude and concern for Spain.

Pio Baroja (1872-1956)

Baroja is the writer who best embodies the pessimism of the time. As a young man identified himself with a sentimental anarchism, and evolved into disappointment and skepticism. Stands out as the most important novelist of the moment, especially brilliant in the portrayal of characters, the description of environments and dialogues.

Life

In critical, edgy and honest. It is a timid and sentimental person who cares for the humble, the asocial and marginalized.

Work

Baroja was primarily a novelist, though he also wrote stories and essays.

Conceived the novel as the genre that can include all other genres: the philosophical reflection, adventure, description, absolutely everything. According Baroja, life is more than literature, and writing that should be subject to life and reflect the style clear and direct as possible. Hence in his novels display a broad social outlook, with numerous characters, settings, reflections and anecdotes. But, overall, reflects the reality that Baroja is usually impregnated with his pessimism.

• Baroja’s characters are often antisocial or rebellious beings. Together, they respond to two types of characters: first, men of action who are struggling to escape the everyday mediocrity, on the other, the characters confused and apathetic that they are unable to act. In general, both groups end up failing.
• In environments, dominated by suburban, life of the poor and their social, political and economic.
• Baroja’s style is characterized by simplicity and reflects the living language used anti rhetorical language, sometimes neglected, phrase and paragraph brief and quick and spontaneous tone. Get a quick story, some descriptions expressive and believable dialogue and alive.

Novels

Baroja classify his work in trilogies, although sometimes, the novels of a trilogy bear little relationship to each other. The most prominent are:

• The fight for life
• Basque country
• Adventure novels
• The race, consisting of the tree of knowledge.

Requirements for a group of authors considers Generation

1 – Among the youngest and most should not be more than 15 years.

2 – They have a uniform education, similar.

3 – Pedro Salinas tells us that what they had in common is that they were self-taught.

4 – Participate in collective acts. The 98 come all to the grave of Larra, we take as Aurorita. And argued against the Nobel Prize Etxegaray.

5 – generational experience. Historical fact that they collectively influence (the loss of the last colonies).

6 – ideological leadership. Some thought it was Nietzsche and Unamuno. Julius Petersen it was in 1930 and Pedro Salinas in 1927.

7 – Language generation. Features common to the time of writing. Generation 98 very personal styles.

8 – stagnation of the previous generation, become dated and no longer feel identified with the previous generation.

Characteristics of Modernism:

Modernism is understood as a series of European and American trends in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Appear with a contemptuous tone. Ruben Dario assumes. Influencing movements in Modernism:

– Romantic (Becquer and Rosalia).

– French Influence: Parnasianism (art for art) and symbolism (Boudelaire, Mallarmé, Rimbaud away from academic, regulatory). Symbol = physical image that suggests something abstract.

– Hispanic-American Modernism. Rubén Darío.

Topics of modernism:

There are two trends: a poem that spoke of the exterior (legends, exotic locations) and the other trend is on the inside of the poet. From this second trend are a number of characteristics:

• Romantic malaise (feeling rejected by society, disgust and sadness) the French called spleen.
• Escapism, fleeing from life by all possible ways. Nymphs appear.
• Cosmopolitanism, do not feel rooted in a country.
• The love and eroticism, appeared much love and idealize women and is linked to an impossible love. Faced with that aspect this unbridled eroticism.
• Topics American Indian themes. Goes against cosmopolitanism.
• Hispanic, seeking the roots, celebrates the Spanish against Yankee civilization.

It is considered that the modernists seek harmony in a world they were discordant. They hunger for fullness, and the opposite feeling of sadness.

Type of language:

Linguistic enrichment. It uses all the literary figures that highlight the meaning. The theme of the chromatic (color). Many issues (purple, gold, bright, blue, white). As many references to the sound (music, sad or playful). Rate ornamental. They are personified excess resources, phonics, vocabulary, images. As for the metrics continue with the contributions of the Romantics, contrary to the rules, use the Alexandrine, the dodecasyllabic, disregards 11, 8. Many verses are variations even invented (Alexandrian sonnets and quatrains by serventesios).

Differences

Modernism Group 98

1 – Universalist. Spain / Latin America. 1 – Spanish.

2 – 2 literary basis – ideological and social basis.

3 – uprooting and refuge in the exotic. 3 – uprooting and naked.

4 – personal issues. 4 – social issues.

5 – Poetic Genre. 5 – prose.

6 – new forms and rhythms. 6 – New genres: essay and novel.

7 – More beauty than the truth. 7 – More truths beauties.

8 – Lexicon different colors. 8 – Lexicon accurate.

9 – musicalize language. 9 – Functional Language.

10 – Scope minority. 10 – Majority.

Conclusions:

• Noventayochistas and modernist belong to a new historical generation and between them have many things in common.
• However, there are many features that unites them in a grip of what is called generation of ’98, especially in his youth.
• In any case we must study the authors in all his literary evolution.

Machado

Theme

Machado first made a definition of what he considered poetry and does so in a schematic form: poetry is “essential and temporality” essentiality means to him that life is over so he art is separate from the ideology of art for art. Poetry must express the essence of the person and when he speaks of temporality is present throughout his poetry and does not express the passage of time but the emotion of the time, the instant. The poet describes it as a loner i tormented by doubt and uncertainty.

Topic

Time “the poet is the dialogue between man and his time” so he will write poems in the form of dialogue and that time appears from many perspectives, or simply as a concept “or death” time-related symbols “the morning, afternoon, night, watch the water “is another topic of sleep, are the most original poems are written are waking innovative images, in those dreams tells us that God sees and the third theme is love which has a theory that has three stages: first you feel the need to be in love, second place is the awareness of love and a person that falls, there is always in correspondence.

The third step: the memory of that love. He said that should not be written in the second step but from the third and that to write of love must be a previously neglected and he writes from a melancholy memory.

The issue of religion is a relationship between man and God.

There are two types:

• (1912-1915) after the death of his wife appears a despairing cry. Many times I write in the form of dialogue and has no answer. Below is a meditation on his poem about the existence of God, but deny it is never full. The last thing he wrote, is a crumpled paper in his pocket the day of the funeral ¯ these blue days, the childhood sun ¨.

Differences

Solitudes Campos de Castilla

1 – 1 Look at me – Look at us

2 – Very formal (feet accent, ornamentation) 2 – Shortage of figures

3 – Metrics modernist 3 – Structural Simplicity

4 – Topic: sleep, water, afternoon, wheel … 4 – Spain, Leonor, God …

5 – Time nonhistorical 5 – Historical Time

6 – Description of Landscape 6 – Interpretation of landscape

Influence on the silver age. The idol is Juan Ramon Jimenez, Machado is neglected. The poets of the 50s are turning to Machado because its simple and politically committed poetry. Thereafter Machado is considered one of the greatest poets of the twentieth century and was admired for his poetry in the treatment of human problems, humility, loyalty and identified by the people.

Latin American Modernism

RUBEN DARIO

“Brief biography

Félix García Sarmiento was born in 1867 in Metapa (Nicaragua).Took to the French authors. He visited Santiago de Chile in 1886 that led to its touchdown on a great city and the acquisition of an ideal of refined life. At this time, insecure and uncertain, ranging from social poetry and poems dedicated to Victor Hugo. Blue published in 1888, set several poems and short stories and book marks the beginning of the modernist period. In the years that followed became a man of international reputation. He spent five years in Buenos Aires, a city that is a concern Parnassian and decadent. It’s time more intensely literary. Works for The Nation, the most important Latin American newspapers. It sent a correspondent to Spain in late 1898 and relates to the writers of 98. In 1990 begins Dario cosmopolitan stage, with several trips to Italy, Central Europe and Paris, where it has been installed for some time. In 1907 he was appointed diplomatic representative of Nicaragua in Madrid and continued to make frequent trips between America and Europe. During the last years of his life, drunk and sick, suffered economic hardship. Finally, horrified by the war in Europe back to America and died in Nicaragua.

COMMENT OF THE LITERARY WORK OF RUBEN DARIO

Darius says Jean Franco: ¨ The exaltation of refinement and sophistication, their doubts and loss of faith, his idea of poetry as a substitute for religion, its power to transmute the changing and contradictory aesthetic harmony, all these aspects of modernism, which can be isolated in other poets, are merged into the personality of Ruben ¨. Dario poet all kinds of items modernist classic Greco-Roman world, the Far East, the eighteenth-century Versailles, the medieval world. But above all, the poet of love. More than a poet of love is an erotic poet, with a progressive complexity and depth, who sings the great problem of mankind: the desire to enjoy without limit. Eroticism requires imagination and appear so exotic environments. However, as the pleasure does not bring happiness, on the horizon of the poet shows the time, the expiration of the ground, pain, death. In terms of lexical innovations and metrics Dario give all those listed above. His literary output consists of three essential works: Blue, Prose and Songs of secular life and hope, that represent the start, the summit and improvement.

a) First works. They imitate Becquer, Campoamor and Victor Hugo, in addition to their superficial adherence to some typical issues posromanticismo in general.

b) Blue. (88, 2nd ed. Expanded 1890). Yet his poetry is romantic in inspiration. There is more innovation in the stories and the poetic prose than in verse. Regarding his earlier work can be seen more easily in prose, a variety of rhythms and meters.

The book, a mixture of delight in the sensations and great sex.

As regards the title, the symbolism of the color blue has a long life on the work of Reuben. Dario defines the book as “youth, lust for life, and a sensual thrill dew pagan.”

Works by Ruben Dario

• Profane prose (1896-2 th ed. Larger, 1901)

Fully come modernist and represents the triumph and complete castilianization French forms.

In this book, with an unprecedented sense of music, Dario tried all kind of rhythms. Here we showcase all the metrics that Darius brings innovations: different combinations of hendecasyllable, the triplets dodecasyllabic monorrimos in the sonnets Alexandrians. Much of his technical display was inspired by French trends toward free verse. The book highlights in preference aspects of modernism, particularly the preciousness of the of the exotic and the tefinada fantasy.

Profane Prose’s prologue gives us the theory of Darío’s poetry. In regards to why he does not want to make a statement: “My poetry is in me and therefore nobody should slavishly follow my footsteps.” The most significant sentence says “Behold, you will see in my poems princesses, kings, imperial things … What do you want? I hate life and the time when I happened to be born. “

The book’s final poem, a sonnet in dactylic Alexandrian added in 1901 is significant because it demonstrates a concern of the poet in reflection of their own craft. He realizes he has devoted his time to finding a new way that has not found “and I find nothing but the word that flees.” It is important because in this poem is already the seeds of post-Romanticism, born of fatigue to see that the word escapes.

earlier attitudes to Blue: politics, love of Spain, the distrust of the United States. He has abandoned the obsession beautician and seeks intimate poetry, although not abandon the quest for formal beauty.

The most valid of the book is one that affects the knowledge of life. The poet simply plays the major problems of men and means, sometimes as heartbreaking, his inner anguish. You wonder what is art, pleasure, love, time, life, death, religion. There is an overcoming of the aesthetic quality. From this work Rubén predominant tone is the uncertainty and melancholy, obsessed with death.

B) songs of life and hope. (1905)

is the masterpiece of Darius, it witnessed the crisis of secular Prosas aestheticism. There is a return to social concern and reappear

Stresses the poem “I am the one who said only yesterday …” which is a true lyrical autobiography in which the written reviews his mistakes and tries to justify his previous production. The Spanish theme appears most notably in the “Salutation of the optimistic” a very peculiar metric: the classic hexameter Darius is to adapt the system versal Spanish.

Within the existential tone that prevails in the poems of the book should point to the last composition: “Lo fatal.” This is where most bitterly is the tendency to be

c) Most recent works. In these books there is great heterogeneity, it appears that these poems were compiled from various eras.

d) Works in Prose. The transformation of Castilian prose was conducted similar to this in verse, though less brilliant.

They are fantastic stories that reflect their concerns in theosophy, the occult and exoteric doctrines help us to understand many of his poems, inspired by a peculiar religious syncretism. The subjects of the stories are magical .. Blue or French. Darius Just boasted of having introduced into the Spanish language literature the “fairy Paris”, but actually introduced him Gutiérrez Nájera.

In prose stories are works in a manner similar to that used in Impressionist painting, with a deep sense of color contrast. Highlight the collections entitled The rare, (1896), contemporary Spain (1901) and solar Land (1904).

Sonatina, Ruben Darío

It is a composition consisting of eight sextuplet Alexandrine (14 syllables) and therefore, each line consists of two hemistiches. The rhyme is in line and the third and sixth lines of all stanzas are acute. Marked rhythm and musicality. In addition, each of them three-syllable is accented, it is called anapestic OOO (metric). Characteristic of modernism.

The theme is the sadness of the princess not to find her Prince Charming. It is divided into three parts, the first two are talking about the princess and her sadness, in the second part the following 5 sextuplet he describes his life, their world and their preferences, what you want and do not want. The last part is the last sextuplet which solves your problem, and finds her Prince Charming. The strength is in the final text. Upward force.