Cambridge Companion to Spanish
Novel
“Chapter 10: From the Generation of 1898 to the vanguard” – Roberta Johnson
Comps people mentioned (highlighted in blue):
-
Miguel de Unamuno (pg. 155-157)
-
Ramón
del Valle-Inclán (pg. 156, 158-159)
-
Pío
Baroja (pg. 156, 159-160)
-
José
Ortega y Gasset (pg. 162)
Important points (highlighted in red):
-
Generation of ’98 (155-156)
-
Brief but significant flowering of the vanguard
novel in Spain from 1926 until about 1934 (164-165)
-
New novelists of the period from 1900 to 1936
sought to break with the realist-Naturalist tradition (170)
General notes:
-
Period from about 1900 until the Spanish Civil
War (1936-9) is often considered a second Renaissance in Spanish culture, a “Silver
Age” (155)
-
Early signs of modernism in the novel (155)
-
Generation of ’98
(155-156)
o
Writers of Miguel de Unamuno’s era
o
Born at the same time as Spain somewhat
belatedly entered the modern age
o
European modernists – concerned with the effects
of modern life on society and the individual; expressed anxieties in the novel
o
Some major
writers: Miguel de Unamuno, Ramón del Valle-Inclán,
Pío Baroja, José Martínez Ruiz
o
Conscious creation of new art forms in order to
distinguish literature from the precedent realist-Naturalist mode
o
Concern with existential problems rather than
with “real world” issues; however, existential dilemmas are always embedded in
concrete situations such as love and marriage
-
Modernist novel in
Spain arose somewhat earlier than in the rest of Europe – around 1902
rather than with the onset of the First World War (156)
o
Spain entered existential crisis earlier than
other parts of Europe due to a corrupt government in the 1890s and the war
between Spain and U.S. in 1898 in which last colonies were lost
-
Miguel de Unamuno: Niebla, 1914 (157)
o
Unamuno’s third novel
o
Novel stripped of external descriptions and
depictions of social ills and institutions
o
Introduced a metafictional element – characters discuss
the process of novel-writing, specifically the kind of novel we are reading
§
“Victor Goti, friend of the main character
Augusto Pérez, is writing a nivola,
which he defines as having a great deal of dialogue and no plot or a plot that
makes itself up as it goes along, just as life is lived” – idea of spontaneous
novel
o
More metafiction – author himself appears as a
character who engages in an important conversation with Augusto
§
“The wealthy August has fallen in love with
Eugenia, who already has a boyfriend named Mauricio. Eugenia, disgusted with
Mauricio’s suggestion that she marry Augusto but continue their relationship on
the side, breaks with him and finally agrees to marry Augusto. At the last
minute, however, she elopes with Mauricio and writes Augusto a devastating
farewell letter. In despair Augusto decides to commit suicide, but before doing
so, he travels to Salamanca to consult with Unamuno, who tells him that he cannot
kill himself because he is a fictional entity. Augusto, up to this point a
passive character, begins to assert himself. He determines to prove his
existence by committing suicide; he eats too much for dinner and dies, leaving the
reader to decide whether it was Unamuno who killed him or if he killed himself.”
-
Pío Baroja
(159)
o
Relied on artistic language to convey a sense of
anxiety about the modern world
o
Camino de
perfección, 1902
§
New conception of novel as loosely structured,
more conform to life’s unstructured path than to the traditional pattern of
beginning, middle, and end
§
Influence of picaresque tradition of character moving
through the world and experiencing life
o
He was Spain’s most prolific novelist of
pre-Civil War period
o
El árbol de la ciencia, 1911
§
Represents Baroja’s interest in the role of
science in the modern world and the relationship of writing to life
§
“Baroja, who had a medical degree and was a
practicing doctor for a short time, explored through Andrés Hurtado, the
protagonist of El árbol de la ciencia,
the limitations of science and philosophy in dealing effectively with the basic
problems of humanity – poverty, disease, immorality, and loneliness”
-
Section about
feminism during the time period in Spain (160-162)
o
Not as organized and militant than in the U.S. /
England
o
Women writers have been left out of literary
history and the canon
o
Carmen
de Burgos and Concha Espina (not on Comps
list…)
-
José Ortega y Gasset
(162)
o
Philosopher
o
Intellectual leader of “Generation of 1914”
o
Introduced Spain to phenomenology, a philosophy that
emphasizes the way humans perceive the world around them
o
Argued against novelistic realism and in favor
of narratives that encapsulate the reader in their own artistic world; wanted a
new kind of fiction writing
-
“Disaffection from the Restoration monarchy
reached crisis proportions by 1923 after a series of disastrous military campaigns
in North Africa. To quell the unrest, King Alfonso XIII ceded governing power
to General Primo de Rivera, and Spain was ruled as a military dictatorship from
1923 to 1930” (164)
-
1920s – greater cosmopolitanism in Spain (164)
-
Brief but
significant flowering of the vanguard novel in Spain from 1926 until about 1934
(164-165)
o
Light, airy tone
o
Often fragmented,
scenically centered narrative influenced by film techniques
o
Influences of cubism
and futurism
o
Example: Ramón Gómez de la Serna (not on the list)
-
Many women writers were deeply engaged in the
feminist movement in the 1920s (167)
o
Talks about
a few examples of women writers, but none of the ones mentioned made it onto
the list.
-
“By the late 1920s, when these writers began
publishing fiction, Spain’s political stability was collapsing. Primo de Rivera’s
dictatorship ended and King Alfonso XIII went into exile, opening the way for
the Second Republic proclaimed in 1931. The Republic suffered wild swings
between leftist radicalism and conservative background that led to the Civil
War in 1936” (169)
-
New novelists of the
time period from 1900 to 1936 sought to break with the realist-Naturalist
tradition (170)
-
These novelists influenced later, post-Civil War
novelists such as Camilo José Cela, Carmen Laforet, Ana María Matute, Luis
Martín Santos, and Miguel Delibes (170)
o
Elliptical plot structures
o
Poetic language
o
Linguistic representation of thought processes
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