Bohemian Lights: A Satirical Look at Spain’s Dark Side

Posted on Oct 12, 2024 in Language

1. Historical Context and Reflection in the Work

Luces de Bohemia satirizes Spanish politics, society, and religion, denouncing the nation’s situation. Valle-Inclán uses distorting mirrors to reflect various aspects of Spanish reality, including:

  • Allusions to the imperial past (Philip II, El Escorial).
  • References to Spanish colonies in America, the Tragic Week (1909), the Russian Revolution (1917), and the events following the Spanish crisis of 1917.
  • Criticism of political figures: “Death to Maura!“
  • Strikes against bad government, ministerial corruption, capitalism, and bourgeois conformism.
  • Protests against police repression, torture, and illegal detentions.
  • Depiction of street riots and workers’ revolution.
  • Caricatures of the bourgeoisie: the bookseller Zaratustra, the landlord Pica Lagartos, proponents of the stage’s order.
  • Critique of traditional and empty religion.
  • Criticism of literary figures, schools, and institutions (e.g., Galdós).
  • Ridicule of bohemian life and its uselessness.

2. Literary Context (Modernism and Generation of ’98)

Modernism seeks to reconcile diverse influences, combining Parnassianism, Symbolism, Impressionism, Aestheticism, and Mysticism. It blends traditionalism with exoticism and simple expression. In Spain, Modernism represents a critical attitude against bourgeois norms, with intellectuals and artists rebelling against society. Alongside Modernism, the Generation of ’98 emerged, a group of writers, essayists, and poets concerned with:

  • Spanish identity: distinguishing between the real and the false, the miserable and the apparent.
  • A deep interest in and love for Castile.
  • Breaking classical literary molds and creating new forms (e.g., Valle-Inclán’s absurdity).
  • Using simple language close to the street and restoring traditional words.
  • Expressing pessimism and favoring Joaquín Costa’s regenerationist ideas.

Max Estrella

Max Estrella, a rich character, can be analyzed from various perspectives:

  1. He represents Alejandro Sawa, a well-known bohemian in early 20th-century Madrid, whose life and work inspired Valle-Inclán. Sawa lived a bohemian life in Madrid and Paris, where he married a French woman, worked for his friend Rubén Darío, and met French Symbolist poets like Verlaine. He returned to Madrid, where his literary career failed, and died of hunger and cold in 1909. His posthumous work was titled Lights in the Dark (1910). His ideology was radical, close to anarchism.
  2. From a social perspective, Max symbolically represents the contemporary intellectual, specifically the bohemian, with all his contradictions. He embodies the intellectual proletariat, becoming a voice for the people’s claims.

Don Latino

Don Latino, Max’s companion, is one of the few characters with a real-life counterpart in early 20th-century bohemian circles. He could be any of the modernists Sawa associated with. Sawa often had a dog, and Don Latino is once referred to as “dog” in the book. However, some critics see Don Latino as a split personality of Max. He also embodies symbolic-mythical figures like Virgil guiding Dante through hell (Madrid for Max), Sancho Panza to Max’s idealistic poet, and Lazarillo deceiving his blind love.

10. The Esperpento (Features)

  • Grotesque as a means of expression: mixing real-world and nightmare.
  • Systematic distortion of reality: highlighting the contradiction between societal behavior and preached values.
  • Double code: ridicule and caricature with a deeper moral lesson, using violent contrasts and absurdity.
  • Presenting the extraordinary as normal and plausible.
  • Presence of death as a fundamental character.
  • Equalizing pomposity through animalization and objectification.
  • Dehumanization: degrading humans, making them appear like insensitive objects.
  • Violent, sarcastic language.
  • Formal freedom.

Developments in Valle-Inclán’s Work. Justification for Inclusion in the Appropriate Stage

a) Presentation (I): Exposition of the human, social, and economic context.
b) Development (II-XI): The protagonist’s journey through Madrid.
c) Outcome (XII): Max’s return home and death; the theory of absurdity.
d) Epilogue (XIII-XV): Closure with circular structure.

8. Setting

The action takes place in various locations. Only the third and final scenes (Pica Lagartos Tavern) and the first and thirteenth scenes (Max’s attic) share the same setting. These are real spaces (ordinary corners of Madrid) transformed into dramatic settings. The play unfolds in a nonsensical, brilliant, and hungry Madrid, where the street holds particular importance.

9. Time

a) The action spans just over 24 hours, from dusk one day to the following night. It incorporates historical and literary references from different periods (loss of American colonies in 1898, the 1917 Russian Revolution, strikes).
b) The work refers to the period from 1913 to 1920. The general strike of 1917, mentioned in the work, and the Catalan lockout (refusal to leave factories for the Moroccan War) are key events.