The Impact of 20th Century Wars on Spain and Literature
The Twentieth Century World Wars: Japanese Russo (1905), World War I (1914-1918), World War II (1940-1945), Cold War (1947-1991).
Spain in the Twentieth Century: A period of crisis, economy, and society. Spain, a rural country, favored the development of socialism and anarchism. Politically, it faced the loss of its colonies. Spain suffered under the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, the proclamation of the Second Republic, and the outbreak of the Civil War, after which the dictatorship of Franco was established until his death in 1975.
European Literature in the Twentieth Century:
- Parnassianism: A movement seeking to escape the surrounding world, prioritizing form over content. Notable writer: French poet Charles Baudelaire, *Les Fleurs du mal*.
- Decadence: A search for new ways to exploit formal beauty, with an excessive preoccupation with form. Notable writer: French poet Paul Verlaine, *Poèmes saturniens*.
- Symbolism: Aiming to reach the depths of existence and imagination. Notable writer: French poet Arthur Rimbaud, *Illuminations*. This movement is not easy to understand (French authors).
Modernism: An art movement that evolved from aesthetics to social and existential concerns.
Origins:
- Parnassianism: Concern for form.
- Symbolism: Used symbols to evoke reality through language.
Features:
- Places: Exotic, unreal worlds to escape from reality.
- Metric: French metrical forms, some ancient verses, and alejandrinos. There are changes in forms; new stanzas are longer and have a fixed structure as the metric is liberalized: serventesios, quartets of alejandrinos, and sometimes mixed quartets and serventesios. When the lines are 14 syllables and have a caesura, they are divided into 2 hemistichs.
- Style: Mixing the senses to create beautiful synesthesias, utilizing phonic resources such as alliteration, internal rhymes, and parallels.
Spanish Representatives:
- Poetry: Manuel Machado (Modernist), Antonio Machado (Modernist ’98, loneliness), Juan Ramón Jiménez (lilies, purple souls, sad arias).
- Novel: Valle (Sonatas, *The Memoirs of the Marquis de Bradomín*).
- Theater: Marquina, Valle-Inclán (*Divine Words*).
Ruben Dario: *Azul*, *Prosas profanas*, and *Songs of Life and Hope*.
Characteristics of the Generation of ’98:
- Antirhetoric: Sobriety and elegance are perceived in the care of their writing style.
- Subjectivism: Authors reflect their own feelings.
- Traditionalism: Interest in Spain leads them to use traditional words and classical sources.
- Genre: They turn to test cultural reflections and lyrical vision.
Topics:
- Spain: Concerned about the backwardness of the country and a great interest in landscape, history, and culture.
- History: They want to discover Spanish values and the root of evils.
Representatives of ’98:
- Miguel de Unamuno: *Peace in War* (intrahistory: the story of people is not known) is modeled realistically, but *Nivola* connects philosophy to literature. Notable works include *Aunt Tula*, *Abel Sánchez*, and *San Manuel Bueno, Martyr*.
- Pío Baroja: Part of realism but introduces renovative elements; participates in action and introduces dialogue with comments and descriptions to avoid monotony. Notable works: *The Way of Perfection*, *Searching*, *Adventurous Zacaín*, and *The Tree of Science*.
- José Martínez Ruiz, Azorín: His novels are a portrait of the Spanish land and its inhabitants. Notable works: *The Will* and *The Confessions of a Young Philosopher*.
- Ramón María del Valle-Inclán: His early novels, *Sonatas*, are marked by modernism, evolving into grotesque historical novels that mix real and fictional characters in works such as the *Carlist War Trilogy*. His greatest contribution was the scarecrow introduced in the novel *Tirano Banderas*.
- Antonio Machado: His works evolve from romantic intimacy and loneliness to philosophical themes, new songs, through modernism and objectivism, as seen in *Campos de Castilla*.