Modernist and Generation of ’98 Literature Overview
Modernist Authors
Rubén Darío
Darío’s work uses Parnassianism and Symbolism.
- Parnassianism: The poem should be a perfect work of art, seeking to provoke sensations.
- Symbolism: The poet must submit their feelings. Recurring symbols link a perceived reality to our emotions.
He used the Alexandrine verse form.
His three most important books are:
- Azul (Blue): Combines prose and verse.
- Prosas profanas (Profane Prose): A collection of poems and his most Parnassian book.
- Cantos de vida y esperanza (Songs of Life and Hope): His most mature work. Uses themes of love and beauty, but also less joyful issues like lost youth and the anguish of death.
- El canto errante (The Song of Wandering): Reviews his career, guided by love, which sets the imagination in the service of life.
Manuel Machado
An atypical modernist poet with an ironic view of life. Sings to revelry, with the attitude of one who is back to youthful dreams.
His most important books are:
- Alma (Soul)
- El mal poema (The Bad Poem)
- Cante hondo (Deep Song): Recreates in his own way the stanzas characteristic of Andalusian folk tradition.
Juan Ramón Jiménez
His poetry goes through several stages:
- Sensitive Stage: His youthful poetry is modernist, focusing on intimacy. Outstanding works include Arias tristes (Sad Arias) and Jardines lejanos (Distant Gardens). Feelings and sensations dominate. His favorite landscapes are gardens and parks. He addresses the theme of love with a certain irony that sometimes borders on cruel.
- Intellectual Stage: Represented by Diario de un poeta recién casado (Diary of a Newly Married Poet). Reflections on beauty and poetry dominate, expressed in free verse without meter or rhyme.
- Sufficient Stage: He wrote in exile. Speaks of the poet himself and his work. Creates his own god: a god to his measure, of which only he is a prophet and interpreter. Works include Espacio (Space), Dios deseado y deseante (God Desired and Desiring). Shows strong faith.
Generation of ’98 Authors
Valle-Inclán
Valle-Inclán’s work has two stages:
- Modernist Stage: Characterized by the figure of the Marquis of Bradomín, a womanizer and sentimentalist. This stage has four novels: Sonata de primavera (Spring Sonata), Sonata de estío (Summer Sonata), Sonata de otoño (Autumn Sonata), and Sonata de invierno (Winter Sonata). In Flor de santidad (Flower of Sanctity), he links popular Galician belief with the occult. La lámpara maravillosa (The Magic Lamp) collects his ideas on art, inherited from French Symbolism and Spanish mysticism.
- Generation of ’98 Stage: In the 1920s and 1930s, he evolves into a very critical view of Spanish reality. Creates the esperpento, in which characters are distorted into a cruel caricature of themselves, exemplified in Luces de bohemia (Bohemian Lights).
Miguel de Unamuno
He cultivated many genres: essays, novels, drama, and poetry.
- Essayist: Works include Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (The Tragic Sense of Life) and La agonía del cristianismo (The Agony of Christianity). To explain his ideas, he invented the concept of intrahistoria (which does not appear in history books: the experiences of ordinary people).
- Novelist: An audacious novelist who liked to experiment. His novels raise philosophical problems and paradoxes. Some of his works are Amor y pedagogía (Love and Pedagogy), Niebla (Mist), and San Manuel Bueno, mártir (Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr).
- Playwright: Unsuccessfully attempted to renew the theater of his time with works like El otro (The Other), which focuses on the characters’ internal conflicts.
- Poet: Primarily considered a poet, but not very successful. His philosophical poetry is generally unmusical, prioritizing reasoning over rhythm or melody. Highlights include El Cristo de Velázquez (The Christ of Velázquez), in which he develops his vision of God.
Antonio Machado
His most important books are:
- Soledades (Solitudes): An intimate book, focusing on the memories and dreams of the poet. The garden of his childhood is like a paradise lost, to which he returns through memory and sleep.
- Campos de Castilla (Fields of Castile): The poet turns his gaze outward. Abundant descriptions of the Castilian landscape, through which Machado indirectly expresses his emotions. His vision of the country’s problems, backwardness, conformity, and corruption, leads him to take sides with what he calls “the Spanish idea,” republican and anticlerical.
- Nuevas canciones (New Songs): Focuses on the popular Andalusian tradition, composing short poems in which he exposes his philosophical concerns.
Pío Baroja
A great impressionist narrator.
Baroja’s novels are grouped into trilogies and tetralogies, where he develops a theme or the lives of some characters. Among the best known are:
- Tierra Vasca (Basque Country) cycle: Consisting of La casa de Aitzgorri (The House of Aitzgorri), El mayorazgo de Labraz (The Patrimony of Labraz), and Zalacaín el aventurero (Zalacaín the Adventurer).
- La lucha por la vida (The Struggle for Life) cycle: Including La busca (The Search), Mala hierba (Weed), and Aurora roja (Red Dawn). Baroja presents the life of young people in early 20th-century Madrid, who hesitate between work and crime, and who are attracted to the anarchist utopia.
- La raza (The Race) cycle: Includes El árbol de la ciencia (The Tree of Knowledge), La dama errante (The Wandering Lady), and La ciudad de la niebla (The City of Mist).
Azorín
Azorín’s work revolves around two obsessions: the Spanish landscape and classical literature. Descriptions and developments of the past predominate. Among his books, we can distinguish two groups:
- Autobiographical works: La voluntad (The Will), Antonio Azorín, and Las confesiones de un pequeño filósofo (The Confessions of a Little Philosopher). They depict scenes from his childhood.
- Works on Spanish literature: Castilla (Castile) and Los pueblos (The Villages).