The Poetry of Modernism and the Generation of ’98

Posted on Sep 29, 2024 in Latin

Unit 8: The Poetry of Modernism

Introduction

Modernism is primarily a stylistic renovation, particularly in the language of poetry. It emerged from a synthesis of Parnassianism and Symbolism, two significant poetic currents. This creative power was introduced by Rubén Darío.

Characteristics of Modernism

Modernism is essentially characterized by the pursuit of absolute beauty as a means to escape everyday reality. The movement presents the following characteristics:

• Discomfort in society and inclination towards solitude.
• Exploration of intimacy and a detachment from everyday reality.
• Anti-bourgeois, anti-realist, and anti-vulgar stance.
• Aspiration for an aristocratic, elegant, and cosmopolitan art.
• Preference for exotic environments, including classical antiquity, the medieval world, and the Orient.
• Expression of inner nostalgia and anxieties.
• Maintenance of formal beauty through the idealization of reality.

Renovation in Modernism

The renovation in Modernism is focused on the following aspects:

Key Figures in Modernism

Manuel Machado

Manuel Machado was influenced by Darío, as well as Parnassian and Symbolist poets. In his work, which is especially lyrical, graceful, and inconsequential, his Andalusian songs and light poems are most remembered.

Rubén Darío

Rubén Darío is often cited as the originator and leading representative of Hispanic Modernism. His book Azul… (1888) is traditionally considered the starting point of the movement. He was also the first poet who articulated the innovations of Modernism in a coherent poetic style. Willingly or not, especially from Prosas Profanas, he became the figurehead of the new literary movement.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez, a driving force of Modernism, is above all, the great innovator in contemporary Spanish poetry. He received the Nobel Prize and died in exile in Puerto Rico. His poetic evolution, as described by himself, after a simple, neo-romantic beginning, unfolds as follows:

1. Sensitive Poetry: Brighter, modernist, but with gray and intimate tones, between the passion for beauty and nature, in books like Arias Tristes, culminating in the book of poetic prose Platero y yo.
2. Pure Poetry: Strips the image of the sensory, becomes timeless in the form of knowledge and symbol, and is identified with beauty, eternity, and the absolute. His essential book is Diario de un poeta recién casado.
3. Sufficient and True Poetry: Intensifies and deepens the path of knowledge and aspiration for the absolute in the books written in exile, such as Animal de fondo.

The Poetry of the Generation of ’98

The term “Generation of ’98,” accepted by contemporary literature, is controversial because its boundaries with Modernism are not clear-cut. Both movements are born from the same attitude—dissatisfaction with the prevailing literature—and Modernism is the generational language of many writers of ’98. The common features that could identify all the components of this generation are their progressive ideology and concern for the state of crisis and social policy in Spain. The work of the artists of ’98 includes two current trends: symbolism and ideological heritage. However, their language removes the rhetorical brilliance of Modernism while maintaining the impressionistic character of descriptions or the idealization of nature and the Castilian landscape.

Antonio Machado

With a progressively radical ideology and a deep existential humanism, Antonio Machado left Spain at the end of the Civil War and died in France. His poetry synthesizes the classicism of forms, the symbolism of the sensory world, and the exploration of his inner self. Several recurring obsessions appear in his work over time: nostalgia for lost childhood and youth, lack of love and emotional correspondence, and the relationship between elements of the landscape and his state of mind. Through a combination of descriptive narrative and reflection, his work involves three stages:

1. The First Stage: Represented by Soledades, Soledades, galerías, y otros poemas. It shows the writer’s interiority, loneliness, melancholy, and the transience of life and lost havens.
2. The Second Stage: Represented by Campos de Castilla, it marks his integration into the Generation of ’98, turning outward to express his thoughtful nonconformity and maladjustment to social reality, but also the sublimation of a dematerialized and idealized landscape.
3. The Third and Last Stage: Represented by Nuevas canciones, it is more thoughtful and reflective. It also includes the work of Juan de Mairena.

Miguel de Unamuno

Also a playwright, novelist, and essayist, Miguel de Unamuno expresses his inner restlessness, existential problems, and his aesthetic vision of Castile with an austere style in Poesías, Romancero del destierro, and Cancionero.

The Nineteenth-Century Avant-Garde Poetry

Critics have grouped essayists and novelists under the name of “Novecentismo.” They are considered close to Modernism in their vital, social, and aesthetic concerns, although they differ in their refined literary expression. This differentiation is based on two fundamental aspects:

• From a social point of view, they adopt an intellectual and minority attitude in their concern for the regeneration of Spain.
• From a literary point of view, they defend pure art and literature as an intellectual exercise based on nineteenth-century language.

Ramón Gómez de la Serna

Ramón Gómez de la Serna is a contemporary figure. His work, varied and complex, always challenging in both genres and forms, is characterized by disagreement and dissent, and a continuing trend towards experimentation and the indeterminacy of genre. He is, without a doubt, a great promoter of the avant-garde spirit in Spain.

The Modernist and ’98 Theater: Valle-Inclán

Commercial theater thrived in the early decades of the twentieth century. The works of Carlos Arniches, idealizing Madrid and Andalusian society, continued to be successfully performed. His characters are types and reflect the strengths and weaknesses typical of both regions. Arniches later embarked on a tragicomic theater. Among the successful authors, Jacinto Benavente stands out. His initial stage, represented by El nido ajeno, breaks with the melodramatic tradition of the nineteenth century. However, it soon gives way to successful high comedy of a bourgeois character, managing to overcome the grand declamatory tone with his elegant and refined language. In his masterpiece, Los intereses creados, he introduces characters from the Italian Commedia dell’Arte and depicts a society based on a set of interests through its protagonists. Among the Modernist and ’98 authors are:

• Miguel de Unamuno: His dramas, as well as his novels and poems, deal symbolically with existential conflict and lack ornamentation. Notable works include Fedra.
• José Martínez Ruiz, “Azorín”: Created plays such as La fuerza invisible.
• Jacinto Grau: Sought to renovate the theater of his time, which he accused of being commercial and unoriginal, using a variety of themes, approaches, and techniques. His works include El señor de Pigmalión. Later, he employed expressionist and symbolic techniques.
• Ramón María del Valle-Inclán: A great innovator of Spanish theater. Valle-Inclán rejected the bourgeois realism of the previous stage and offered a total renovation of the Spanish scene in all its aspects, experimenting with different methods. His extensive production can be divided into:

Avant-Garde Theater and ’27: García Lorca

The Generation of ’27, best known for the work of its poets, also offers a roster of playwrights.

• Rafael Alberti: His theater reflects the concerns of his poetry. Highlights include El hombre deshabitado. In exile, he wrote Noche de guerra en el Museo del Prado, which is closer to the absurdity and monstrosity of war, and deals with the political issue of the heroism of the people.
• Max Aub: Started with avant-garde works such as Crimen and Espejo de avaricia, but then, in exile, wrote a testimonial theater committed to reality: San Juan.
• Alejandro Casona: Oblivious to the avant-garde, he recreated a poetic, stylish, and mysterious reality. After La sirena varada and Nuestra Natacha, he wrote his best work in exile: Los árboles mueren de pie. The central issue is usually the opposition between fantasy and reality in the lives of his characters.
• Federico García Lorca: The best-known Spanish playwright abroad. His production begins with El maleficio de la mariposa, whose lack of success led the author to experiment with new formulas to approach the public. Lorca believed that theater should serve to raise awareness among the people and also believed in the power of the poet to transform reality with words. It is a total spectacle to which text, scenography, music, dance, and everything capable of communicating contribute. His dramatic production can be classified into:

The European Avant-Garde

The avant-garde movements of the first third of the twentieth century, generally originating in France and Germany, are referred to as avant-garde. They impacted the entire Western world, affecting all artistic manifestations. These avant-gardes are heirs to Symbolism, Impressionism, and Modernism, repeating and exaggerating the innovative spirit of these movements, reaching incestuous experimentation with literary forms and playing with sounds or words. With an extreme interest in the inner world and its mystery, it is believed that art is a reflection of the self, and that intelligence and knowledge should be above reality and truth, above instinct. Among the most representative avant-garde movements are:

• Cubism: Claimed knowledge and wisdom of the artist, not a sensitive vision of reality, and provides basic concepts for the avant-garde: the autonomy of the work of art, simultaneity of ideas and perceptions, and collage. These proposals were adapted to literature by Apollinaire in his Calligrammes. It breaks the order of reality for another form.
• Futurism: Proposed the simultaneity of moving sensations, enhancing energy, manly strength, progress, industrialization, and the machine.
• Expressionism: Supported only the creative subjectivity of the artist to capture the spiritual essence of reality and expressed a tormented vision through exaggerated forms that play with experimentation and the accumulation of medieval, baroque, and romantic elements. Expressionism influenced, in some ways, the absurdity of Valle-Inclán.
• Creationism: Claimed that the poem does not imitate or reflect nature, but is an autonomous entity. They believe in their verses. The most important figure is Gerardo Diego.
• Dadaism
• Ultraism: Included many elements of Futurism and proposed metaphors and images as the axes of poetry.
• Surrealism: Considered the most important. Surrealists are committed to creation and seek to unravel the ultimate meaning of reality. They intended to express, by means of automatic writing, a script that results from the spontaneous blossoming of words from the subconscious or dream without the intervention of logical or coherent reason. Surrealism influenced many poets of the Generation of ’27.