Miguel de Unamuno and the Generation of ’98
M. Unamuno (1864-1936)
Miguel de Unamuno was a person of concocted and borrowed ideas, an active and controversial intellectual who lived intensely with the preoccupations of his time and spread them through his work. His literature reflects a strong personality and revolves around his preoccupations: regeneration or existence. Therefore, it is a literature in which ideas predominate – reflective or philosophical – aimed at provoking the reader’s reflection through a vehement, agile, and very expressive style. His work spans all genres but was known for his essays and newspaper articles.
Life
Born in Bilbao, Unamuno was a Professor of Greek at the University of Salamanca (USAL). In 1924, and as rector since 1901, he was exiled to Fuerteventura and from there fled to France. He was an Assembly member, a constitutionalist, and chairman of the National Council of Public Education. He held critical and contradictory positions.
Work
Unamuno cultivated all genres. His writings offer a great unity, a repetition of themes, and his personal style.
Subjects
His subjects reveal his vital journey: a first juvenile stage in which regenerationist concerns dominate and evolution towards the existential subject, and religious maturity. He pursued an expressive style that is impassioned, vivid, and direct, with numerous exclamations, interrogatives, and paradoxes.
Theater and Poetry
His philosophical drama recalls classical tragedy: Phaedra, The Sphinx, Loneliness.
His lyric deals with two major themes: his reaction to the landscape and his existential (especially religious) concerns, and an intense style beyond fashion: Poetry, Lyrical String of Sonnets and Ballads of Exile.
Novel
His novels deal only with issues that concern him and eliminate all that is not essential in the story. They are philosophical novels, dense, schematic, and profound: Fog, War Peace, Love and Pedagogy, Aunt Tula, and San Manuel Bueno, Martyr. “Nivola” is a neologism created by Unamuno to describe his unique approach to the novel form.
Essay
He vehemently presents his thoughts and harrowing experiences.
- Europeanization: The issue of Spain, a spiritualist posture, and the Hispanization of Europe.
- The Lands of Portugal and Spain: The tone of purism.
- Existential Theme: Of the Tragic Sense of Life, The Agony of Christianity.
M. de Unamuno, Pio Baroja, Maeztu, R. Dario, Valle-Inclan, Jacinto Benavente, and Azorín.
José Martinez Ruiz “Azorín”
Azorín’s style is simple, precise, and evocative, focusing on the themes of time and landscape. His work revolves around the theme of time, its constant flow, transience, and permanence, as well as landscapes and feelings. He evokes fleeting reality in a sad, nostalgic way and makes abundant landscape descriptions, mainly of Castile. His style is a model of precision and clarity, with short sentences juxtaposed or joined by periods. The detail gives the impression of slowness. The lexicon is rich and includes archaisms.
Novel
Description of feelings and atmospheres with an impressionistic style.
Essay
Characteristic features: obsession with time, the correspondence between landscape and mood, melancholia, and detailed descriptions, dominated by two themes:
- The landscape (author’s ideological revolution, Tragic Soul of Castile and Andalusia).
- Literary criticism (subjective vision of Spanish literature, Classics and Moderns and the Classics).
Pío Baroja (1872-1956)
Characters: Baroja’s characters are asocial beings or rebels. Together, they respond to two types: first, the men of action who are struggling to escape everyday mediocrity; on the other, the characters are confused and apathetic, unable to act. Generally, each ends up failing.
Environments: Dominated by suburban life, the life of the poor, and their social, political, and economic circumstances.
Style: Simplicity, anti-rhetoric, living language, and colloquial language.