Modernist Novel: Characteristics and Key Authors
The Novel Before 1936: Introduction
20th Century: Crisis of Realism and Search for New Novelistic Forms.
1. Argument
The action becomes less important, is interrupted by digressions, and has an open and uncertain ending.
2. Themes
Besides the universal themes (loneliness, death, love), themes are inserted into nihilism, psychoanalysis, and philosophy. The inquiry becomes psychological and moral.
3. Structure
External: Arrangement into chapters and sequences. Internal: Influence of film and language.
4. Characters
Cerebral, abstract individuals who only know their internal world. The interior monologue appears.
5. Space and Time
Subjective (mythical spaces, labyrinths). Time: anachronous as flashbacks or advances.
6. Narrator
Next to the external narrator, internal narrators are introduced (proto: autobiographical narrative, witness: secondary character or intrusive narrator, who talks about the characters).
The Modernist Novel or Generation of ’98
In 1902, four works were published that broke with realism: The Will (A), Way of Perfection (B), Love and Pedagogy (U), Autumn Sonata (VI). All reject the realist aesthetic and share these traits: subjectivism, same issues (the crisis and the failure of bourgeois values), breaking the tripartite design of the argument, renewed prose: simplicity (B, A), precision (A, U), beauty (VI). Authors:
Miguel de Unamuno
Advocated an intimate realism. Works: Fog (existential anxiety and longing for immortality and a God), Abel Sanchez (blind envy), Aunt Tula (frustrated maternal instinct), San Manuel Bueno, Martyr (martyrdom of a priest to hide his loss of faith).
Azorin
Two major themes in his work: the passage of time and creative writing (the novel becomes a hybrid genre of narrative, essay, and prose poem). The Will and Doña Inés.
Valle Inclan
Modernism led to its creation, the grotesque: 3 cycles: symbolist-decadent (His Four Sonatas, which represent the culmination of modernist prose), historical cycle (Carlist War trilogy – more legendary than historical, in rural Galicia), grotesque novels cycle: caricature and grotesque vision of the contemporary world. Tyrant Banderas (satire of a dictator), The Iberian Circle (caricature of Queen Elizabeth II).
Pío Baroja (1872-1956)
Purest of the novelists + Generation of ’98 (philosophical pessimism, negative vision of Spain). Goings on NOVL: s 1 Genres multiform k sn srs PROTAS todo.sus covers two K inadapté fail in their vital.bja dislocated his great dstaca x dscripción: s and in the dta dtien and giving snsación d ll star in the place mentioned.
Style
Concise writing, short paragraphs, clear and direct language. Disregard for lengthy phrases and empty re-rings.
Work
Two stages: 1st (until 1912) (range is thematic and creation is better): + d 70 NOVL, 34 ias agrpadas in trilogy:
- Earth’s Basque: Zalacaín the Adventurer
- Fantastic Life: Way of Perfection
- The Dislocated Life: The Seeker
- The City Is: The World Is Like
- The Sea: The Inquietudes of Shanti Andia
- To Race-d Tree T the 100cia: (911) nvla d cractr filsofico (s may baroja considrar autobiography d). structura Linal, chronological and crrada (s cicls subdivided in 2: d d studiant médico.prsnajs : Andres, Lulu, familiars, friends, prsnajs colctivos.
Step 2: dsd 1913 (Istor and prspctiva ironic undertone) mmorias ame d d 1 action (22 NOVL k recount the life spañola dl dl avnturro century through aviranta) trilogies agonies d nustro time, the dark slva the juvntud prdida.