Spanish Theater and Literature of the Early 20th Century

Posted on Oct 2, 2024 in Latin

Pre-Theater 1936

The Theater that Trumped

The nature of the show, particularly concerning the theater, faced strong commercial constraints due to the absolute dominance of local private entrepreneurs. These entrepreneurs had to consider the tastes of the aristocratic and bourgeois public. According to Francisco Ruiz Ramon’s History of the Theater, two trends emerged:

Bourgeois Comedy

The bourgeois public sought entertainment rather than moral dilemmas in the theater. Consequently, authors catered to public taste to make a living. Jacinto Benavente, the most representative figure of the early 20th-century Spanish scene and Nobel Prize winner in Literature (1922), was known for his formal neatness, elegance, discretion, and criticism. However, his first play, The Alien Nest, faced public outrage and had to be removed. Benavente subsequently accepted the public’s limitations, tempering his satire to remain within tolerable boundaries. His works generally fall within the line of drawing-room comedy. A notable exception is his masterpiece, Vested Interests (1907), which employs the language and characters of the Italian Commedia dell’Arte to offer a cynical view of bourgeois ideals.

Verse Drama

This trend continued the poetic habits of the 19th century but also introduced modernist verbal art on stage, often associated with traditionalist ideology. Notable authors include Francisco Villaespesa and Eduardo Marquina, whose dramas explored past glories, and the Machado brothers, who combined historical theater with modern dramas like The Lola is Going to Ports.

Comic Theater: Types and Scenes

Thoroughbred types and scenes, or environments, had been a constant in the sketches of Ramon de la Cruz in the 18th century and in the manners and customs of late 19th-century operettas. Authors like the Hermanos Álvarez Quintero, with works set in Andalusian ambiance, and Carlos Arniches, focusing on the atmosphere in Madrid, continued this tradition. Pedro Muñoz Seca stands out for creating a new genre called Astrakhan, characterized by outlandish comedies full of jokes aimed at provoking laughter. His most important work, Don Mendo’s Revenge, is a hilarious parody of Zorrilla’s dramas and a rejection of verse drama.

The Theater that Aims to Innovate

El Teatro Del 98 and Vanguard

In contrast to the prevailing trends, some playwrights incorporated innovations into their works. These include the noventayochistas Unamuno and Azorín, whose works reflected existentialist trends; Jacinto Grau, who pursued a distinct, culturally ambitious theater often inspired by literary themes or great myths like The Lord of Pygmalion; and Ramon Gomez de la Serna, who anticipated later trends (Eugène Ionesco) with his anti-theatrical works driven by a desire for a theater for reading in the cold tomb. His play The Media presents things instead of characters on a completely black stage, with characters having half-black bodies to symbolize their incomplete and frustrated personalities.

Ramon Maria del Valle Inclan

Valle-Inclán introduced a new concept of stage space that broke with the rigidity of the time, foreshadowing later avant-garde approaches. Critics often classify his dramatic production into three groups or cycles:

  • Mythical: Featuring modernist evocations, initially focused on the Galician countryside. The trilogy Comedy Crest, comprising Eagle (1907), Romance de Lobos (1908), and Cara de Plata (1922), is a prominent example.
  • Farce: Introducing his mockery and criticism of society in works like The Head of the Dragon (1914).
  • Esperpento: Valle-Inclán offers a grotesque and distorted view of reality (time, social issues, personalities from various fields). Grotesque plays include Luces de Bohemia (1924) and a trilogy consisting of Bohemian Lights (1920), Mardi Gras Gift Horns Friolera (1921), Late Galas (1926), and The Captain’s Daughter (1927). In prose, Tirano Banderas (1926) stands out.

Valle-Inclán himself defines esperpento in Luces de Bohemia as a means to offer a tragic vision of human and social reality, aiming to make the viewer (or reader) aware of society’s true nature. He achieves this by:

  • Using the grotesque as a form of expression, distorting reality and presenting it as credible and uniquely real, causing surprise and perplexity.
  • Creating a caricature of society and its inhabitants, animalizing and objectifying human beings, turning them into puppets insensitive to their surroundings.
  • Employing various resources: violent contrasts, the presence of death, morality conveyed through sarcastic humor, the use of popular speech.

Theater of 27

The 1920s witnessed innovations in theater. Prominent authors include Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti with The Eyesore, Alejandro Casona with Our Natasha, and Max Aub, who developed his work in exile.

Federico García Lorca

Lorca, alongside Valle-Inclán, is a major innovator of contemporary Spanish theater. His dramas reflect a preoccupation with the pain of living. In 1936, García Lorca stated: “The theater is poetry that rises from the book and becomes human. And when it is made, it talks and shouts, cries and despairs. The theater needs characters that appear on stage crying and laughing and, at the same time, that they see the bones, the blood.”

His dramatic career began with The Curse of the Butterfly (1919) and concluded with The House of Bernarda Alba (1936). His works can be grouped into:

  • Puppet farce works: The Blackjack Puppets (1923).
  • Human farces: The Love of Don Perlimpín and Belisa in the Garden (1931).
  • Avant-garde works difficult to represent: When Five Years Pass (1931).
  • Works centered on the land of Granada: Mariana Pineda (1924).
  • Tragedies: Set in rural areas, these works connect with the Golden Age theater (Lope de Vega, Calderón de la Barca) through shared themes like the power of love, honor, and the use of popular elements like tunes and the combination of verse and prose in dialogue. The general theme is the struggle of characters against the social order to achieve their liberation.

Examples of Lorca’s tragedies include:

  • Blood Wedding: Depicts a bride’s escape on her wedding day with her former lover, leading to the groom killing the lover and dying in the conflict. Highlights female honor in a hostile male world.
  • Yerma: In a society where motherhood is paramount, a woman frustrated by her inability to conceive and her husband’s lack of understanding resorts to murder. Reflects the inevitability of fate.
  • The House of Bernarda Alba: A recently widowed mother fights to preserve her daughters’ chastity, prioritizing it over their desired freedom. This struggle between authority and freedom ends tragically in death.

Lorca’s style employs simple language in his pursuit of a popular theater. However, his signature symbolism, characteristic of his work, remains present. In The House of Bernarda Alba, for example, Angustias’s engagement ring and pearls symbolize tears and pain, foreshadowing the tragic fate of her courtship.

Generation of 98

The term “Generation of 98” traditionally refers to a group of late 19th-century writers, contemporaries of the modernists, who shared concerns about the social, historical, and cultural consequences of the Crisis of 98, triggered by the loss of Cuba and the Philippines in 1898. Key figures include Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja, José Martínez Ruiz (Azorín), Ramiro de Maeztu, and Antonio Machado. Ramón del Valle-Inclán deserves special mention, as his work cannot be strictly classified within the Generation of 98.

This literary trend emerged from the “Group of Three,” composed of Maeztu, Pío Baroja, and Azorín, who believed that “the group could not remain inert to the painful Spanish reality, it had to intervene,” referring to the state of Spain at the time.

Style

Common stylistic features of the Generation of 98 authors include:

  • Use of simple language characterized by anti-rhetoricism.
  • Enrichment of language with etymology and popular expressions.
  • Abundance of coordinated structures in syntax and short paragraphs.
  • Renewal of the art of the novel.
  • Predilection for the essay.

Subject

Two major concerns dominated the writings of the Generation of 98:

  • The issue of Spain: They expressed deep love for Spain, acknowledging its backwardness and seeking solutions to its problems. Their approach involved exploring the landscape and history. They discovered and appreciated the austere Castilian landscape as the core of Spain, reflecting it subjectively by projecting their spirit onto it. They sought to elevate the soul of Castile and the real Spain, expressing both sadness and love. Initially, they viewed Spain’s recent history as the cause of its ills, but from 1905 onward, they delved into the past to find the intrinsic values of Castile and Spain. They were more interested in what Miguel de Unamuno termed intrahistoria—the quiet life of millions of ordinary people—than in external history (conflicts, conquests, etc.). Their love for Castile and Spain led them to yearn for the Europeanization of Spain, advocating for openness towards Europe and its values to revitalize the country.
  • The meaning of life: They grappled with existential problems, connecting with the philosophy of the previous century and, like the modernists, feeling uneasy about the world they lived in. They questioned the meaning of human existence, the passage of time, death, and, finding no answers, experienced profound anguish. Although mostly agnostic, religion also featured in their literary production, particularly in the works of Miguel de Unamuno.

The Novel

The novelists of the Generation of 98 favored a narrative that portrayed reality but focused on the exposition of ideas and environments from a subjective viewpoint, rejecting realist and naturalist aesthetics. Their novels primarily reflected the existential problems that plagued their characters: the struggle for survival, the fear of death, the transience of life, loneliness, etc. They often disregarded traditional structure, with some novels consisting of a series of episodes, anecdotes, and digressions (Pío Baroja) or narratives based on philosophical assumptions (Unamuno). Protagonists were often anti-heroes (The Tree of Knowledge), social outcasts struggling to survive, or characters who succumbed to pessimism due to the absurdity of existence (Augusto Pérez in Unamuno’s Niebla). The style was sober and anti-rhetorical.

Pío Baroja (1872-1956), considered the greatest novelist of the Generation of 98, produced a vast body of work organized into trilogies revolving around common themes: The Basque Country (The House of Aizgorri (1900), The Birthright of Labraz (1903), and Zalacaín the Adventurer (1909)); The Struggle for Life (La Busca, 1904); The Fantastic Life (The Path of Perfection, 1902); and Race and the Sea (The Tree of Knowledge, 1911). His historical novels, comprising twenty-two works integrated into Memoirs of a Man of Action (1913-1935), blended history with autobiographical elements. His style was fast-paced, precise, and vivid.

Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) focused on themes of humanity, death, and God. His novels were projections of his inner struggles and the problems of life. He preferred to call them “nivolas”—short stories that delved into the drama of human existence, avoiding specific locations and descriptions. Literary critic Angel del Rio classified Unamuno’s novels into: historical (Peace in War (1897)); ideological and existential (Love and Pedagogy (1902) and Fog (1914)); and tragic (Abel Sánchez (1917) and Aunt Tula (1921)). Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr (1933) stands apart, depicting a priest who, despite losing his faith, continues to minister to his congregation, who consider him a saint and martyr, highlighting the priest’s inner contradiction.

José Martínez Ruiz, Azorín (1873-1967), primarily known for his essays and newspaper articles, also wrote novels. His work revolved around the passage of time and the issue of Spain, seeking to redeem its past glory through the Castilian landscape and traditional literature. His impressionistic, clear, and precise style served to describe objects and landscapes. Notable novels include The Will (1902), Antonio Azorín (1903), and Confessions of a Young Philosopher (1904).

Great Novel Authors: In the early decades of the 20th century, between modernism and the intellectual novel of Noucentisme, two other authors stand out: Ramón Pérez de Ayala (Belarmino and Apolonio (1921) and Tigre Juan (1926)) and Gabriel Miró (Our Father, Saint Daniel and The Leper Bishop (1926)).

The Essay

The essay was the most prolific genre for the Generation of 98. However, it warrants a dedicated study beyond the scope of this overview.