Inclán, Modernism, and the Generation of ’98: Key Themes & Authors
Inclán: A Varied Production
Inclán’s production is varied, passing through an elegant modernist critical position. His work has two stages. The first, modernist, includes sonatas in 1902: Estío (Summer), Otoño (Autumn), 1903: Primavera (Spring), 1904: Invierno (Winter) in 1905. The Marquis de Bradomín exalts them in a decaying world. Plays include Barbara Forman by: Eagle of Heraldry, 1907, Romance of Wolves 1908, and Silver Face 1922.
The Esperpento Period (1920s)
The esperpento period, exemplified by Bohemian Lights, introduces the first ‘scarecrow,’ signifying an extravagant person who is absurd in a play.
Fiction of the Generation of ’98
Fiction from the Generation of ’98 shows a detachment from realism and naturalism. Thematic issues are existential, structuring tortured characters. It does not follow the traditional structure, including digressions and episodes. Antiheroes are social outcasts struggling to survive, and there is an anti-rhetoric. Unamuno’s sober themes concern the problem of Spain, focusing on Spain and Europeanization, or intrahistoria. He wrote Peace in War and Love and Pedagogy.
Nouveau: Key Features
- Scorn for the bourgeois world and preference for environments away from the reality of the moment.
- Search for the exotic, pre-Columbian and Eastern, with a mysterious tone.
- Harmony and taste for Greco-Roman culture.
- Presentation of the formal beauty of the text and purpose.
- Renewal of syntax and lexicon.
Sources of modernist influences include Parnassianism and Symbolism, considering art for art’s sake, as well as influences from Bécquer, Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman.
Thematic Directions
There are two directions: one outward and the other toward the poet’s privacy. Factors of this intimidation include uneasiness, romantic melancholy, sadness, and anxiety as the main feelings. Evasion flees the world to the ways of dream to show their disagreement, escaping to exotic places. Cosmopolitanism: one aspect of love and eroticism evasion is idealized but often the lady love impossible to evoke sensuality. Indigenismo: Hispanic heroes are landscapes and a way of escape but the pre-Columbian era, Hispanic landscapes and lands of Spain in defense of the Spanish, the existential anguish of mind the melancholy bitterness of the past and the uncertainty of the treaties listed fututo
Key Authors
Authors include Ricardo Gil, Manuel Reina, Francisco Villaespesa, and Salvador Rueda, but the most important was the arrival of Rubén Darío in 1896 with Profane Prose in 1896 and Songs of Life and Hope in 1905. Secular modernists figures stand out as Manuel Machado and Marquina in the theater. Valle Inclán, Antonio Machado and Juan Ramon Jimenez
Aesthetic Restoration of Language
Aesthetic restoration of language pursued sonority and musicality, characterized by ornamental and suggestive power.
Metric Innovations
Metric innovations include new stanzas and verses, sonnets, silvas, and atypical verse romances. Rhythm gives poetry a musical effect, using monorhymes and internal rhyme.
Rubén Darío (1867-1916)
Born in Nicaragua. Notable works include Azul (1888), Profane Prose (1896), and Songs of Life and Hope (1905).
Manuel Machado (1874-1947)
Born in Seville, died in Madrid. Notable works include Alma (1900), Apollo (1911), and Cante Hondo (1912).
Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958)
Born in Moguer, died in Puerto Rico. Notable works include Souls of Violet, Arias Sad, Distant Garden, and Ballad of Spring Pastoral.