20th Century Spanish Novelists: A Literary Analysis
Valle-Inclán
Bohemian and Eccentric
Stages
– Stage of the Sonatas
His style reflects refined senses. The work par excellence is the tetralogy Sonatas.
– Stage Between the Sonatas and the Nonsensical
His novels are filled with rural settings and contrasting, violent characters, and use harsher language. His masterpiece is the Carlist War.
– Stage Grotesque
The absurdity also seizes Tirano Banderas and novels like The Iberian Arena.
(The absurdity: a literary creation of Valle-Inclán which is the grotesque distortion of reality. He was inspired by the concave and convex mirrors located on the front of the Alley Cat bar in Madrid. The characters, esperpentos, lose their humanity to reach the cartoonish.)
Themes and Style
We stand out as most important issues of love, death, religion, and rural Spain (Galicia).
Works
– Sonatas
Sonata Sonata Fall and Spring. The main character, MARQ Bradomin, is the one who discloses these alleged memoirs in which he narrates his adventures. A Don Juan “ugly, Catholic and mental sense.”
– Carlist War
(The writing style of Galdós’ Episodios Nacionales). The trilogy consists of The Crusaders for the Cause, The Glow of the Fire, and Bigwigs of the Past. Valle-Inclán presents a traditional view of Spain, represented by the Carlists and facing the liberals.
– Tirano Banderas
An experiment in the genre of the historical novel that chronicles the fall of dictator Santos Banderas.
– The Iberian Arena
Historical novels of the period from the end of the reign of Elizabeth II to the War in Cuba. The Court of Miracles.
Rafael Alberti
Works
His poetry revolves around the theme of paradise dreamed, represented in the sea, love, pain, spiritual conflict, or exile. His representative works are:
– Stage Populism (1924-1926)
- Marinero en tierra, published in 1924, won a national poetry prize. It recovers popular metric forms combined with sonnets that express the deep longing for the sea of his native Cádiz as a child.
– Stage Neogongorina (1926-1929)
– Stage Surreal (1929-1930)
- About the Angels came to light in 1929 and is considered the masterpiece of the writer. It reveals the terrible spiritual conflict suffered by Alberti in those years and focuses on topics such as love, anger, failure, or confusion. Surrealist techniques are used to express the disunity of the body and spirit. It shows some “bad angels” to symbolize the feelings of pain and despair of the poet.
– Poetry and Social Policy (1930-1940)
- The Poet in the Street belongs to social poetry, in which the author reveals how the revolutionary poet.
– Poetry in Exile (1941-1947)
His style includes a wide variety in both styles (traditional, folk, avant-garde, cult, etc.) and themes (angst, social poetry, etc.). It is characterized by the use of anaphora, figures of meaning with shades of color, free verse, and surreal images.
Federico García Lorca
Works
The predominant themes in Lorca’s poetry are death, love, and frustration, which often lead to tragedy. Lorca was tormented by anxiety, the inability to understand the world, loneliness, and frustrated passion, which is continually reflected in his work. The frustration and the tragic destiny of human beings are his main themes.
– Stage of Youth (1921-1928)
In this stage, modernist trends and popular authors are present. Also present is the influence of Surrealism, especially the use of metaphors. The prevalence of Andalusian culture is evident.
- Gypsy Ballads (18 romances): Roma are pure and innocent beings. The amounts to literary myths.
– Surreal or Maturity Stage (1929-1936)
Includes the years in New York until his final return to Spain. Expresses its opposition to the dehumanization of the world.
- Poet in New York, written between 1929 and 1930, clearly opts for style and social consciousness, as well as the imprint of Surrealism, which is reflected in a dreamlike view of the topic.
- Sonnets of Dark Love, published posthumously, this collection reflects his experience of unfinished love. There is a return to intimacy and love themes.
Style
Lorca’s poetic work is marked by a mastery of creative technique. The fusion of religion and popular literature pervades his work.
One of the most characteristic symbols of the author is present in all his work.
Because of the importance of the popular aspect of Lorca’s work, it combines the use of romances, choruses, etc., with classic verses or free verse.
Luis Cernuda
Works
Luis Cernuda’s work is marked by his hypersensitive character (excessive sensitivity and vulnerability) and his homosexuality, which explains their isolation and defiance, because of the lack of understanding from the society of the time. The reality that he lives collides with their wishes and dreams, and from this conflict are born the subjects of her poetry, such as loneliness, frustration, the eternal child, the desire for beauty, death, and above all, love as the supreme and painful experience. He was conscious of being a marginal creature.
His work is grouped into several stages:
– Stage Seville, Years of Learning or Pure Poetry (until 1923)
– Stage Madrid, Youth or Surreal (1929-1938)
- Forbidden Pleasures: also influenced by Surrealism, in this work are attached to feelings of love, the loneliness inside. The author confronts the world with the choice of forbidden love and is not accepted. Expresses her rebellion against social conventions and homosexuality.
- Donde habite el olvido: the title comes from a verse by Bécquer. This book turns away from Surrealism and the outside world. It presents love as a painful experience. It is a “neo-romantic” book.
The collection of poems La realidad y el deseo (1936) is considered his spiritual biography as it includes Forbidden Pleasures and Donde habite el olvido.
– Stage in Exile or Maturity
This stage demonstrates the poet’s spiritual anguish, as well as a deep disappointment and nostalgia because of their personal situation.
- Desolation of the Chimera: the poet speaks of his bitterness and his memory.
Style
Luis Cernuda expressed his dissatisfaction in his life, the inability to achieve their dreams due to the misunderstanding of a skeptical and conservative society. Love prevails as a joyful or painful experience, childhood, loneliness, the inexorable passage of time, and nature in search of perfect beauty.
Avoid sharp rhymes. Used free verse, combined with traditional verses. Like Guillén, he had all his works begin with a capital letter.