Literary Analysis: Jiménez, Baroja, and Unamuno’s Impact
Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958): A Literary Journey
Juan Ramón Jiménez’s work, obretida, extends to the mid-twentieth century and undergoes profound changes. His early works are influenced by the literature of the late 19th century, such as Modernism and Symbolism. In his first books, we see an exalted tone that attenuates later. His themes are nostalgia, death, and mystery, relating to aestheticism and decadence. Symbolism highlights Arias, sad and distant gardens in which there is an erotic conflict.
A key aspect of his Modernism is silversmithing, and his prose work implies a closeness to nature and the people of Andalusia. Regarding the second part of his production, it is more melancholy than vitalistic. Diary of a Newly Married Poet marks a significant change, reaching its peak. In this poem, the poet sees the world as chaos. Against this chaos stands beauty. The actual journey to New York to marry serves as a tour of his own conscience. The sea is the backbone of the work, and its changing rhythm produces free verse.
There are two sides to the trip: the real and the interior. As for the inner journey, it is his arrival as an adult man that causes anxiety about the unknown. It will also be a journey into modernity. After Eternities, his production and position excel. In his last work, he looks in his conscience for the way towards the absolute and celebrates the discovery of her buskeda. Emphasize Total Station, where there is a passage from life to death, the romances of Coral Gables that focus on solitude, space, and depth, where animal ends his poetic mysticism.
Pío Baroja: The Novelist of Misfits
Pío Baroja devoted himself almost exclusively to the novel and left traces for later writers. For him, the novel is a genre in which everything can be included: psychology, adventure, criticism, and humor. Although he uses all these issues, he opts for adventure, where the protagonists are misfit people who fail in life and are characterized by pessimism. He uses few women, to whom he gives little importance, and many of his characters disappear without a trace. He is characterized as a master of detail and description, using believable dialogue.
Among his works are Way of Perfection, The Search, The Tree of Knowledge, and Memories of a Man of Action. In The Way of Perfection, his protagonist oscillates between periods of suffering and states of apathy, psychological development, and reaches the fullness of life. The Search is part of a trilogy, and this book is the most representative in terms of synthetic observation, produced with a direct and cutting style.
Unamuno: The Novel as a Means of Interpretation
Unamuno used the novel as a means of interpreting reality, expressing items that obsessed him, such as the death instinct. His novels focus on the intimate conflict generated by a family interlock. His narrative begins with Peace in War, a historical novel, but his main novels are Fog, Abel Sanchez, Aunt Tula, and San Manuel Bueno, Martyr.
In Fog, he presents counter-determinism through the confrontation of the protagonist and his creator. The protagonist tells his creator that he wants to commit suicide but does not say why. He is just a fiction, and the hero replies the same thing, but created by God, and then kills the hero. Abel Sanchez is a novel about Hispanic Cainism. It is a confession of the protagonist, and his daughter is a study on western paranoid personality. Aunt Tula has a strong character in contrast to a weak man. In it, the protagonist wants a virgin and mother, which is therefore a challenge to male society. San Manuel Bueno, Martyr explores the loss of faith of Don Manuel Bueno, who replaces it with the will to believe.