Modernism and Generation '98 Literature

• Modernism includes characteristics of Ruben Dario who had two stages, Antonio Machado who was involved in both modernism and Generation '98 and Juan Ramon who had three stages.
• Generation '98 includes characteristics of Unamuno who wrote essays and novels, Azorin who wrote novels and bagatelles, and Baroja who created two types of characters, those who are apathetic and those who take action.

Modernism

• Literary movement originating in Hispanic America, spreading to Europe, reflecting the weariness of the bourgeois authors.

Characteristics of Modernism

• Common themes are beauty, love, sensuality, classical and Hispanic American mythology, exoticism involving distant places and times like the Middle Ages
• Symbolism includes the swan (representing modernism), princesses, peacocks, and flowers.
• Common terminology includes beauty, gardens, and colors
• Meter uses sonnets of two quartets and two tercets as well as Versos alejandrinos which have 14 syllables.
• Literary Resources includes symbols, metaphors, alliterations, parallelisms, anaphora, epithets, and synesthesia.
• Neologisms includes words like "Altísimo" and "Extranjerismo"

Ruben Dario

• The first stage, Parnasian, is the time of Azul, a work composed of poems, and Profane Prose which combines exoticism and sensuality.
• The writing reflects an aesthetic that is based on colorist adjective and a very constant rhyme.
• The second stage, Symbolist is known for Cantos de vida y esperanza which is the most representative work of this stage with a greater concern for social issues.

Antonio Machado

• Modernism and Generation of '98
• His writing travels the road between the self and others, including both individualism and solidarity.
• Early works were modernist marked by the Becker instinct and symbolism.
• Main themes are time, death, and God.
• Symbolism includes the afternoon and time coming to an end.
• Soledades, galerías y otros poemas is an extended version of his previous book titled Soledades includes melancholy and a look into the depths of the soul.
• The second stage contains a more Noventayochista Approach.
• Castilian Landscape expresses not only a projection of a state of personal spirit, but romantic subjectivity.
• Work is austere, simple, and sincere with the form serving the idea.
• Noventayochista Approaches are characterized by subjectivity of his view of the landscape and analysis in addition to criticism with patriotic concern.

Juan Ramon

• First stage from 1898-1915 involves the pursuit of beauty with an objective to capture the world's beauty through colors, aromas, and sensitive qualities.
• The writing suggests that external beauty is not permanent, it is destroyed by time.
• The main symbol is the rose and representative work of this stage is La soledad sonora, Platero y yo.
• Second stage from 1916-1936 involves the pursuit of knowledge with the goal to seek the enduring and profound in addition to the essence of things.
• Essence is formed by the inner beauty and good qualities which is abstract and understood through intelligence with the main symbol, the sea, as the fullness of the essence of the world.
• The prominent work from this stage is Diario de un poeta recién casado
• Third stage from 1937-1958 involves the pursuit of eternity and the reality that the poet faces solitude and lack of communication aware of mortality.
• Transcendence involves the fusion of consciousness with the All or universal consciousness, including mystical influences.
• His most representative work from this stage is God Desired and Desiring.

Generation of '98

• Characteristics include an economic, political and social crisis in Spain after 1898 characterized by the loss of colonies.
• Genres include essays and novels with themes of concern for Spain, the Castilian landscape, and existentialism
• The style is a narrative done in first and third person.

Unamuno

• His essay, La agonía del cristianismo, uses the term "agony" to express the inner struggle of man between human aspiration and immortality.
• In regard to casticismo differentiates the concepts of history and prehistory.
• A Philosophical Novel by Unamuno is innovative in its narrative focusing on expressing philosophical ideas.
• The term Nivola means humorous novel.
• Prominent works include Amor y pedagogía (1902), Niebla (1914), San Manuel Bueno, mártir (1930)
• Nivola is defined as something humorous, which Unamuno has in his own novel.

Azorrin

• In his essays Azorin uses an impressionistic and subjective approach to rural micro-histories to write about the daily world of the people of Castile.
• Descriptions contain subtle details that may go unnoticed unless examined closely.
• The novel is called La voluntad.

Baroja

• Groups almost all of his works into trilogies.
• Adds autobiographical data and holds a pessimistic view of the human being.
• Features two types of characters: those who are apathetic and men who take action.