Spanish Modernism in Literature: A Deep Dive

Posted on Sep 22, 2024 in Latin

Spanish Modernism in Literature

Introduction

Literary Modernism stressed experimental language and literary forms. It defines aesthetics as the change in relationship with a renewal attempt. Literary language is characterized by:

  1. Exoticism: Poets searched for faraway lands and exotic themes as a means of evasion.
  2. Cosmopolitanism: Cosmopolitanism was defended, and Paris became a goal and artistic theme.
  3. Renewal of poetic language: Enriched with foreign words and Americanisms, abuse of archaisms and search for neologisms. Impressionist effects were achieved by synaesthesia, musicality, and chromaticism.
  4. Renewal of versification: Recovery of old forms and creation of new meters.

Modernism in Spain

Historical Circumstances

The restored system was obsolete and worn out. The loss of Cuba created an environment where poetry needed a change. Campoamor and Nuñez de Arce were examples of a spent tradition.

Peculiarities of Spanish Modernism

It has its own features, focusing on the tradition and reality of Spain. Not all poets followed Ruben Dario.

Poets

Antonio Machado

Machado defines poetry as a dialogue between man and time. His two grand poetry themes are:

  1. Time: Time lived.
  2. Dreams and Love: Machado dreamed everything: time, poetry, God, life, nature, and the poet’s dreams. Few references to the beloved, allusions to the lack of love.
Metrics and Expressive Resources
  • Variety of stanzas and verses: Early use of romance, silva, and romance.
  • In ‘Campos de Castilla’, he uses consonant verses, lira, silvas, and quatrains.
  • Uses generic images: Green poplars, singing cicadas, brown oaks.
  • Rarely uses metaphors, often repeats: Soria / Barbican, Duero / crossbow.
Works
  1. ‘Soledades. Galleries. Other Poems’: Influence of Verlaine. Themes: The passage of time, dreams, lost youth, nature, and the problem of death related to the transience of life. Dialogue with seasons, sunrise, night, which appear personified. Obsessive concern for the temporal. SYMBOLS: 1 – The evening means decline (Machado’s time is sad, slow, melancholy). 2 – Water (life, boredom, monotony, eternity) and power (memory). 3 – The orchard (illusion) and garden (linked with afternoon).
  2. ‘Campos de Castilla’: Theme: The decline of Spain, the character of its inhabitants; faces the enigma of life and is assaulted by religious concerns. Formal and thematic novelties. Distinguishes: 1. Proverbs and songs: Brief, sententious poems and parables similar to previous ones in which the problem of the other is often presented. 2. Seven poems dedicated to Leonor’s death. 3. Long poem on the human evil of Alvargonzález.

Juan Ramon Jimenez

Nobel laureate in Literature. His poetry undergoes an evolution. Important expressive resources:

  1. Colors: Prussian blue sea, blue sea, purple, black wind, black hoods, gray binding time.
  2. Impressions made by the disjunctive O.
  3. Use of the rule of three.
  4. Employment of abstract nouns without substantives.
  5. Plural in his early days.
  6. Uses simile, then uses prepositional or appositional metaphor.
  7. Frequent use of neologisms.
Epochs
  1. Early Works: Influenced by the literary trends of the time: 1. A first period clearly influenced by aestheticism and decadence. 2. Symbolism is evident in ‘Sad Arias’. 3. Modernism in ‘Platero and I’: A prose work that implies a closeness to nature and Andalusian people, opposed to fictional progress. This stage closes with: “The sound isolation” and “Poetry and magic mourners”.
  2. Change: Influence of Ortega y Gasset. Work ‘Diary of a newly married’: For him, the world is in chaos, and facing American society stands the idea of beauty. The trip to New York to marry Zenobia will take him on a tour of his own conscience. His journey is focused on: The facts are drawn when they occur. The sea is within the structure of the work, and its changing dynamics generate free verse. The distinction between prose/verse represents two sides of the journey: The real (geographical displacement) and the inner (evolution of consciousness). Thus, the prose is descriptive, with the itinerary and references to reflect the evolution of the poet’s inner verses. This inner journey means moving into the fullness of the grown man, which produces anguish. It is a journey towards modernity embodied in New York and towards his aesthetic maturity.
  3. Later Work: Looks into consciousness as the way to everything and welcomes the finding of his search: ‘Space’.

Manuel Machado

Cultivated the popular genre. Cante Hondo

Miguel de Unamuno

Themes: Family, country, religion, landscape. Works: ‘The Christ of Velázquez’, ‘Poemario of dictatorship’, consisting of 2 parts: From Fuerteventura to Paris and Ballads of exile.