Spanish Literature from 1900-1936: Generations of ’98, ’14, and ’27
1. Introduction: Spanish Literature (1900-1936)
This period is marked by three distinct literary generations:
- Generation of ’98
- Generation of ’14 (Novecentismo)
- Generation of ’27
These generations share key innovations:
- Break from Realism and Naturalism: A crisis of faith in rationalism leads to pessimism and existential angst (e.g., Unamuno and Baroja).
- Art as Refuge: Art becomes an escape from reality.
- Emphasis on Analysis: Focus shifts from reflecting reality to analyzing circumstances, leading to impressionistic expression.
- Rise of Introspection: Literature becomes more meditative, with a growing interest in perspectivism and essays.
2. The Generation of ’98
A literary generation is a group of writers united by ideologies and styles within a specific timeframe.
Characteristics of ’98 Writers:
- Rejection of prior literature’s rhetoric and grandstanding.
- Renewal of the early 20th-century literary landscape.
- Sober and straightforward style with careful prose.
- Use of obsolete words, reflecting a desire to preserve the past.
- Subjective vision with a lyrical and sentimental tone.
- Association of landscape with mood, symbolizing Spain’s decline.
- Exploration of life, death, meaning, time (especially Unamuno), and religion.
Key figures include Miguel de Unamuno, Ramón del Valle-Inclán, Pío Baroja, and Azorín.
Novelists of the Generation of ’98:
Azorín was obsessed with the theme of time and the transience of life, which leads him to evoke in his work last time. His novels pavement testing, because the argument and action become less important. His style of prose is a physical example. In the essay stresses the Route of Don Quixote and Peoples and the narrative will and Don Juan Tenorio. Valle Inclan had a modernist aesthetic influence decisive in his early novels, in who created the Marquess of Bradomin. Its evolution was toward the theater, which went on to earn his own aesthetic. His most outstanding works were Tirano Banderas, The Iberian circle and femininity (her first work of fiction). Pío Baroja Baroja was an independent spirit, restless and rebellious. His dissent led him to adopt a permanent criticism and protest against the defects of society. Baroja conceived the novel as a genre open and multifaceted, in that what mattered was the story and entertain the reader. The novel should be flowing as life and should not be predetermined by a previous plan. The novels should combine the imagination and direct observation of realidad.Baroja was a prolific writer, his novels are often grouped into trilogies that have in common the theme, the environment or the characters.
“The Basque country collecting Aizgorri’s house, and the birthright of Labraz Zalacaín, the adventurer. Environment in the Basque Country, starring Zalacaín is a man of acción. “The struggle for life: The search, weed and red Aurora. It represents a pobre.-Madrid Race: The lady wandering the city of fog and the tree of knowledge, the latter starring Andrew Hurtado.Entre 1913 and 1935, Baroja wrote 22 novels titled Memoirs of a man of action featuring by an ancestor of Pius Baroja.Baroja has a simple style that adds to its work antirhetoric a trend that gives his work a tone spontaneously. Use the phrase short and brief paragraph descriptions impressionists. His tone is sharp and bitter and disappointed but also tender at times. Features: It is distinguished from Miguel de Unamuno by extension, complexity and integration of the created universe. All his work, essays, plays, novels or poems, is an expression of these deep experiences, rooted in his ideas of immortality, the anguish of the ego on the edge of nowhere, the positive sense of the universe, the existence of God …
For the potential launch of the reader thinking, to bring their own discoveries. Almost always it comes to discovering a conflict. After the age of youth, Unamuno in Spain focuses especially on the tongue and in history .- essays:
Stresses Around purity, Life of Don Quixote and Sancho, Tragic Sense of Life in men and in the towns and The Agony of Christianity .- Work narrative: the characters are vivid and Unamuno’s envisaged in different situations.
Stresses Peace in War (set in the 3rd Carlist War, man escapes of planning), Fog (there is the problem of reality-unreality of human existence …) and San Manuel 3.NovecentismoEl Noucentisme, Generation of 14 is installed between the Generation of ’98 and avant-garde literature of the decade of the twenties. The most prominent members: “Novelists: Gabriel Miró, Ramón Pérez de AYALA.-Essayists and intellectuals:” Lyrical Gasset. Ortega and Juan Ramon Jiménez.Características: 1.Abordan the literary task with less passion and more rigorous, with a focus erudito.2.Mayor more intellectual and perfection. What matters is the result of work well done. The prose is brilliantly noucentista estilística.3.Los authors of this generation to study at European universities such training makes them look to Spain from a rational attitude and emotional distances without being dragged down by pessimism and the drama of the 98.4.Análisis Actually, the idea that truth is not only one if not an amount of perspective. 5.Tienden to participate actively in public life, trying to exert sociedad.6.En educational work in literary production have seen a distancing of the sentimental. Noucentisme get favors art as autonomous and independent. The ideal is pure art. The current dehumanizing way. All this leads to a literature for minorities with a reflective receiver and worship.