Spanish Literature: Modernism and the Generation of ’98

Posted on Jan 29, 2025 in Music

Key Authors and Works of Spanish Modernism and the Generation of ’98

Modernist Poetry

Modernist poetry did not intend to bear witness to reality but circumvented it through imaginative play and delight in the senses. Great importance is given to plastic effects, touch, smell, taste, and above all, acoustics. Poetry became the preferred medium of expression. Included in their repertoire of musical character are figures such as alliteration, parallelism, and enumeration. They used metric varieties, among which is the Alexandrine verse. Thematically, there are two centers of interest:

• The expression of the poet’s moods
• The creation of exotic and fantastic worlds

Pío Baroja (1872-1956)

Pío Baroja was noted for his mastery of short description and dialogue. With great powers of observation, his novels have considerable documentary value, as they reflect historical events of his time. Notable works include the novel Memoirs of a Man of Action and the trilogies The Race, which revolves around the figure of Eugenio Aviraneta; The Tree of Knowledge; The Struggle for Life, where the character “The Seeker” appears; and Basque Land, including Zalacaín the Adventurer.

Theater

There were two main trends in theater:

• Commercial Theater: Preserved traces of Realism and Romanticism.
• Renovative Theater: Produced major dramas of the twentieth century.

One of the most representative writers of this period is Ramón María del Valle-Inclán. In commercial theater, the following stand out:

• Poetic drama inspired by historical romantic drama
• Bourgeois comedy, elegant and natural in style
• Drama of manners, which portrays the popular classes humorously

A feature that characterizes the works of so-called commercial theater is the way they treat their characters: nobility, bourgeoisie, and popular classes act and speak without surprising or shocking the public. Arguably, this is a theater of human stereotypes, where everyone knows their place and their role is unambiguous. In contrast, rebellion against the social system and contradictions as a way of life are part of the nature of the characters in renovative drama.

Commentary on Rubén Darío’s “Sonata”

Theme

Through a seemingly superficial subject (the sadness of a princess for not having known love), the poet expresses a deeper content: The princess, like the poet, feels misunderstood, sad, and trapped in the world in which she lives, and thus longs for personal transformation and the transformation of the surrounding reality.

Expressive Resources

The main formal characteristics of the poem are as follows:

a) Musicality:

• The poem’s title alludes to the musical; “sonata” is a short musical composition.
• Alexandrine verses (14 syllables) are divided into two hemistiches.
• Symmetry in the distribution of accents: rhythmic accents fall on the third and sixth syllable of each hemistich.
• The rhyme scheme AABCCB is repeated 8 times.
• Internal rhyme, a novelty introduced by Rubén Darío (“neither happy nor hawk / Scarlet Jester”).
• Parallelistic repetition of a word or group of words in a verse or verses in a row.
• Repetition of links.

b) Exoticism:

• The poem is set in an exotic atmosphere.
• Many names that appear in the text have exotic connotations (e.g., Golconda, China, East, Ormuz).
• Many of the terms used are neologisms or unusual terms (e.g., “Argentina,” “Hypsipyle,” “nelumbo,” “chrysalis”), creating verbal exoticism.

c) Plasticity:

• Names and adjectives are carriers of plastic effects that allow us to imagine an extraordinary world of color (e.g., strawberry mouth, pale, dressed in red, golden chair).

d) Auditory Effects:

• Many words refer to sound (e.g., sighs, silent, password, keyboard sound).