Masterpieces of the Generation of 98 and Modernism

Miguel de Unamuno: Existentialism and the Nivola

Miguel de Unamuno wrote Niebla (a "Nivola" described as an internal monologue of the protagonist that raises questions about the relationship with the author and of men with God) and San Manuel Bueno, mártir (the story of a priest who continues to exercise his priesthood after losing his faith during an existential crisis).

Pío Baroja: The Pessimistic Voice of the Generation

Pío Baroja was a pessimistic, solitary man, critical of society, and anticlerical. He defended the idea that writing is an innate talent that cannot be learned. His style is entertaining, featuring short sentences and paragraphs with fluid, credible dialogues that avoid heavy rhetoric. His work includes trilogies such as The Struggle for Life and Basque Earth, which offer critical views from both pessimistic and adventurous perspectives.

Antonio Machado: From Symbolism to Castilian Landscapes

Antonio Machado lived in Paris, where he encountered the Symbolist world. He was a defender of the Popular Front and the Republic. His work evolved through several stages:

• First stage: Fully modernist, characterized by feelings of sadness, melancholy, loneliness, and dissatisfaction. This period is nostalgic for childhood and uses symbols like "the path" to represent life, as seen in Solitudes, Galleries and Other Poems.
• New poems: These describe the Castilian landscape in a referential way, alongside the poet's inner feelings, as found in Campos de Castilla.
• Philosophical evolution: His poetry moved toward philosophical issues such as reality versus dreams and life as a road, notably in Proverbs and Songs.
• Prose: Juan de Mairena contains the prose reflections of a professor on literature, politics, and philosophy.

Valle-Inclán: From Modernism to the Esperpento

Valle-Inclán experienced the bohemian life of the century, criticized the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, and was imprisoned. He wrote The Sonatas, the height of modernist prose, which tells four sentimental adventures representing the four stages of life of the Marquis of Bradomín—a "Don Juan" who is ugly, sentimental, and Catholic. In Tirano Banderas and the Carlist War trilogy, he depicts the harshness of war.

The Aesthetic of the Esperpento

The Esperpento is a new aesthetic characterized by the distortion of reality. This parody and distortion do not prevent us from recognizing the characters; rather, they involve the humanization of objects and the objectification of characters, using language with mixed registers and levels.