The Generation of ’98: A Literary Renaissance in Spain
1.2. The Generation of ’98: Themes, Style, and Members
Themes
Problems in Spain:
The Generation of ’98 focused on the so-called “tema de España,” which sought to define Spain’s identity through its landscape, people, history, and literary tradition. Writers adopted two opposing attitudes: critical and exalting. They denounced poverty, neglect, ignorance, and the country’s decline, but also celebrated the beauty, vibrancy, and spirituality of the land and its people.
Politics:
Initially, they held progressive ideas, sometimes bordering on anarchism, but later shifted towards conservative positions.
History:
History served as a continuous source of reflection. Unamuno referred to it as the “inside story,” the quiet life of millions of ordinary people whose daily work shaped historical reality.
Longing for Europeanization:
This desire for modernization and openness did not contradict their love for Spain.
Castilian Landscape:
They lyrically exalted the landscape and customs of Castile, which they considered the essence of Spain.
Time:
They explored the relationship between physical and psychological time.
Reality and Fantasy:
They often blurred the lines between reality and fantasy.
The Essay:
The essay emerged as a prominent literary genre favored by the Generation of ’98 writers.
Existential Reflection:
The collapse of values during this period led them to reflect on existential themes: the passage of time, the obsession with death, human loneliness, disappointment, and religious issues. This created a neo-Romantic sentiment that translated into feelings of anxiety, pessimism, and disillusionment.
Style
The Generation of ’98 writers embraced innovative aspects of Modernist language but rejected its excessive rhetoric. They used plain and simple language, carefully crafted with a preference for traditional words.
Their aesthetic and emotional approach to reality infused their language with lyricism. Their subjectivity, projected onto people and things, took two forms: capturing feelings and impressions evoked by what they observed, and using highly expressive language, bordering on caricature, to criticize the painful national reality.
They cultivated all genres (poetry, novels, drama), but their ideological content and reflective nature favored prose, particularly the essay.
Literary Language
Devotion to medieval literature, Fray Luis de León, Quevedo, and Cervantes.
Rejection of the grandeur of earlier prose.
Anti-rhetorical stance, favoring sobriety and carefulness to avoid becoming prosaic.
Preference for traditional words.
Subjectivism and lyricism: merging landscape and soul.
Members
These authors, despite sharing certain concerns, possessed strong individualities. Their aesthetic and ideological evolution followed diverse paths: from Baroja’s independence to Antonio Machado’s commitment, from Azorín’s conservatism to Valle-Inclán’s progressivism.
Azorín
(Pseudonym of José Martínez Ruiz, 1873-1967). Essayist. Politically active in his early career.
His writings predominantly focused on Spain, eternity, and the continuity symbolized by ancient peasant customs. He gained critical acclaim for essays like Spanish Soul (1900), Peoples (1904), and Castilla (1912). He is best known for autobiographical novels like The Will (1902), Antonio Azorín (1903), and Confessions of a Little Philosopher (1904). Azorín introduced a new and vigorous style to Spanish prose.
His astute literary criticism in works like Literary Values (1913) and Beyond Classicism (1915) also stands out. He was the most prominent representative of this generation.
Miguel de Unamuno
(1864-1936). Considered the most intellectual writer of the Generation of ’98.
Born in Bilbao, Unamuno studied at the University of Madrid, earning a doctorate in Philosophy and Letters. He taught Greek at the University of Salamanca from 1891 to 1901, when he became rector.
His non-systematic philosophy permeated his entire literary output. Initially influenced by rationalism and positivism, he sympathized with socialism in his youth, writing articles for the newspaper El Socialista that reflected his concern for Spain’s situation. This concern manifested in essays collected in books like On Traditionalism (1895), The Life of Don Quixote and Sancho (1905), and Through Portugal and Spain (1911). His poems often exalted the Castilian landscape.
He cultivated all literary genres, including poetry, novels, plays, and literary criticism. His narrative work began with Peace in War (1897), followed by Mist (1914), Aunt Tula, and Saint Manuel Bueno, Martyr (both 1933).
His poetry is highlighted by The Christ of Velázquez (1920), while his theater enjoyed less success.
Antonio Machado
(1875-1939). One of Spain’s greatest poets.
Born in Seville, he later lived in Madrid, where he studied. In 1893, he published his first prose writings, and his first poems appeared in 1901. He worked as a French teacher and married Leonor Izquierdo. In 1927, he was elected to the Royal Spanish Academy. During the 1920s and 1930s, he co-wrote plays with his brother, including La Lola se va a los puertos (1929) and The Duchess of Benamejí (1931). In January 1939, he went into exile in Collioure, France, where he died in February.
His first book, Solitudes (1903), featured Modernist poems emphasizing the emotion of the moment and the hidden meaning of his surroundings. Fields of Castile (1912) poetically depicted the Castilian landscape alongside the emotion of lost love. In 1917, he published Selected Pages and the first edition of Complete Poems. An important prose work from this period is The Complementary, a collection of impressions, reflections on daily life, and sketches. New Songs (1924) continued his critical and philosophical line, with increasing emphasis on social critique without abandoning lyrical resonance. In 1936, he published the prose work Juan de Mairena. Sentences, Witticisms, Notes and Memories of an Apocryphal Teacher. The Civil War inspired him to write circumstantial and political poems.
Ramón María del Valle-Inclán
(1866-1936). Spanish novelist, poet, playwright, short story writer, essayist, and journalist.
Born in Villanueva de Arosa, Pontevedra, he studied law in Santiago de Compostela but interrupted his studies to travel to Mexico, where he worked as a journalist. In 1931, he held several official positions, including Director of the School of Fine Arts in Rome. He later returned to Galicia, where he died in January 1936 in Santiago de Compostela.
His first book was Feminine (1895), followed by Galician-inspired works with lyrical depictions of peasant and popular settings, such as Flower of Sainthood (1904) and the poetry collection Aromas of Legend (1907). In the same year, he married Josefina Blanco and published his first play, the barbarian drama Eagle Shield, followed by Romance of Wolves (1908), highly stylized dramatic works with a medieval and violent tone. In Silver Face (1922), the third volume of this theatrical trilogy, the shift towards social criticism became evident.
His second trip to Mexico likely inspired Tirano Banderas (1926), considered his best novel.
Bohemian Lights, his 1920 play, established an aesthetic of distortion, stylizing the vulgar and ugly with a kind of gestural expressionism and caricature.
Valle-Inclán rewrote history in the novel series The Iberian Ring, based on the reign of Isabel II, offering a bitter satirical view of Spanish reality. It comprises The Court of Miracles (1927), Long Live My Master (1928), and Baza de Espadas.