Romanticism, Realism, Modernism, and the Avant-Garde
Literary Styles
Romanticism Style
Facing the neoclassical rules, Romantic creators defended originality and genius. They often used vivid language, with numerous questions, exclamations, and apostrophes, which helped to underline the feelings. When representing nature, landscapes also echoed those tormented sentiments.
Characteristics of Realism
Realism is distinguished by the following features, except that it cared more for the inner world:
- Interest in reality. The author cannot be oblivious to the social changes that occur and attempts to portray the society of that time, its contradictions and conflicts.
- Tendency to objectivity and verisimilitude. The picture of reality must be made by introducing real environments, behaviors, and dialogues, or at least believable ones. The author often uses observation as a creative procedure. Abundant descriptions and dialogues ensure that each character is expressed according to their education and way of being.
The presentation of objectivity does not prevent the author’s voice from having considerable weight in the narrative. The narrator has a global vision of the facts, knows the thoughts and behavior of all the characters, and intervenes with their own observations about the development of events.
Modernism
With Modernism, the presence of Ruben Dario is consolidated. It reflected the rejection of a society too centered on commercial activities. Juan Ramon Jimenez (1881-1959) was born in Moguer (Huelva), lived by and for poetry, and received the Nobel Prize in Literature (1956). His writing sought beauty and perfection, conceiving poetry as a way of knowledge. There are three stages in his life:
- A sensitive, Becquerian stage, going from a poem through a modernist formal brilliance: Spiritual Sonnets (1914) and Summer (1915). He also wrote prose, such as Platero y yo (1917).
- An intellectual stage: more complex than the previous works: Diary of a Newly Married Poet (1916), Eternities (1916-1917), Stone and Sky (1917-1918).
- A sufficient stage: Animal Background (1949), Desired and Desiring God (1957).
Generation of ’98
The loss of the colonies of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines caused a feeling of pessimism and dissatisfaction in Spanish society. This led some authors to reflect it in their writings, thus forming the Generation of ’98. The main topics are:
- Spain: Denouncing the lies and also extolling the beauty of its landscapes and customs (Castilla).
- Existential: Wondering about the meaning of life and death. The religious theme also appears in their works.
- Historical: Looking to the past for an explanation of the current situation.
Antonio Machado (1875-1939), a professor in Seville, was born in France and lived in Soria until the death of his wife. A firm supporter of the Republic, he had to exile in Collioure (France) and died in 1939. His first two books are:
- Solitudes, Galleries, and Other Poems (1907), about time, melancholy, God, and death.
- Campos de Castilla (1912), his most characteristic work, incorporates the theme of Spain and the landscape reflects his sensitivity and mood.
His poetry is characterized by formal simplicity and meter. Antonio also wrote plays and prose, such as the drama The Lola Goes to the Ports and the prose Juan de Mairena.
General Characteristics of the Avant-Garde
1. It is not precise and has no clear and definite line. 2. It adapts to the pace of contemporary life: vagueness, anxiety, and confusion. 3. It breaks with traditional lines, i.e., working with free verses. 4. It uses many metaphors, presenting a more difficult reading. 5. The grammatical order is altered, with the sole purpose of confusing the reader. 6. It uses ingenuity and fantasy to represent reality.
Romanticism and Realism
The 19th century can be divided into two stages: reality and art. In line with these two stages, two streams of literature are distinguished: Romanticism and Realism.
- Romanticism: The revolution and beginning of the first half of the century is characterized by the exaltation of the individual and the cult of creative freedom. Imagination is the supreme faculty of intelligence, not only to understand reality but to create a separate universe, the result of reverie, in a literary work.
- Realism: Instead, it responds to a change in attitude recorded in the mid-century. Faced with the exaltation of the individual’s own fantasy and the romantic, realist writers are concerned with the detailed description of reality and show interest in the analysis of human behavior in society.
Characteristics of Romanticism
Topics:
- The individual and liberty: Romantic literature reflects an idealistic vision, characterized by the exaltation of the subjective self. The individual, their own feelings and desires, becomes the romantic theme par excellence. It proclaims the right to freedom in all aspects of life, rejecting any rule or regulation restricting artistic, political, economic, or religious freedom. A romantic writer is Mariano Jose de Larra.
- Tragic love: Feelings among the highlights that exalt love. Love sometimes emerges as a passion that faces any barrier and leads to disappointment, skepticism, or weariness. Other times, the loved one is presented as a dream, an unattainable ideal. In any case, it is a tragic love, truncated by social norms or an adverse destiny.
- The clash with reality: The clash between ideals and reality causes disappointment and disillusionment, often leading to suicide.
- The taste for the supernatural: Death, beyond the stories of ghosts, ruins, and mystery-laden environments, are very common.
- The interest in the popular and national: A great interest in all that they interpret as genuine manifestations of the soul of the people. Customs and folk songs, ballads and legends, stories, and medieval times.
Genres:
- The interest in feelings makes lyrics and drama the preferred genres by romantics. With them, there is a revival of narrative poetry, especially the romance of history and the historical novel.