Spanish Literature: From Generation of ’98 to Post-War
Spanish Literature: From the Generation of ’98 to Post-War
The Narrative of the Century up to 1939
The literary renewal of the Generation of ’98 is characterized by the following features:
- Predominance of an ideology, within the concept of engaged art, with the determination to get to the bottom of the issues, and formulate solutions, if only purely subjective, abstract, or theoretical (i.e., literary).
- Driven by intense philosophical concerns, the components of the generation raised questions about religious conflicts and existential worries, positioning themselves as a clear precedent of European Existentialism.
- Given the many national problems, the essence of the noventayochistas is found in the specific values of the Hispanic landscape, history, and literature.
- It aims to transform the novel and theater with technical resources, also testing modern settings.
- Its prose is characterized by exquisite attention to style, sober and simple, clear and natural, with a very important wealth of vocabulary, using all kinds of terms.
The Avant-Garde
Novecentismo, or the Novecentista generation, is a group of intellectuals who, since 1914, proposed a renewal of ideological orientations, based on the Generation of ’98, but not its pessimism and purity. They also proposed a renewal of the artistic, taking Modernism as a starting point, while rejecting excessive ornamentation.
In the Novecentista payroll, led by the philosopher José Ortega y Gasset, several novelists can be distinguished: Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Gabriel Miró, and Ramón Gómez de la Serna.
Civil War Impact
The Civil War was a violent break with the artistic advances made so far, aborting these efforts to transform Spanish literature with technical innovators and the most representative themes of the twentieth century by our novelists.
After the war, the outlook was bleak.
Literature and Literary Genres
Definition of Literature
Literature is the art that uses the word as an instrument of expression, written in verse or prose.
Literary texts serve a poetic or aesthetic function of language, which aims to beautify the linguistic code by means of stylistic or rhetorical figures.
Literary works are classified into different genres: poetry, fiction, drama, and essays.
Main Features of Lyric Poetry
With poetry, the author or poet conveys their own feelings. Lyric poetry is expressed through poetic compositions and poems, which are composed of verses, usually grouped into stanzas, although there are also poems lacking in verses.
In classical poetry, the meter is very significant, as is syllabic or syllabic count and rhyme, assonance, or consonance.
In contemporary poetry, however, there is a tendency towards renewal and technical experiments with so-called free verse or blank verse.
Key Features of the Novel
With the narrative, included within the epic genre, the writer or narrator refers in prose to the characters’ actions.
The narrative is expressed through the novel, a literary work written in prose that deals with real or imagined events that happen to characters in a certain place and time.
It is important to highlight the importance of linguistic and narrative resources: the issues or events, descriptions of places and characters, the characterization of these characters, the picture, dialogue, and monologue, in addition to others more specific to renewal and experimentation.
Among the innovators of technical resources that serve contemporary fiction, we can distinguish their structure, the unfolding of the author, perspectivism, breaking the chronological order, the interior monologue, depersonalization, or reducing the relevance of space and objects themselves, the changes resulting from language games, and the expansion of typographic effects.
Main Features of the Theater
In the theater, belonging to the drama, the playwright gives the floor to his characters who keep viewers in a dialogue in prose. The major subgenres of drama are tragedy, comedy, and tragicomedy or drama.
His works are often divided into acts, scenes, and pictures, highlighting the importance of dialogue and stage directions. Stage directions are the playwright’s instructions on the assembly or staging of his play: the scenery, costumes, lighting, visual effects, and stage movement. Through the use of such technical resources, renewal and experimentation are often intended.
Main Features of the Essay
With the essay, an example of the didactic genre, the writer or essayist presents his reflections in prose and with a variable length, about a particular issue, proposing to instruct the reader and to convey some knowledge to develop research devoid of anything fictional.