Modernismo: Concept, Origins, Influences, Themes and Stylistic Features

Modernismo Concept

Modernismo is a set of European and American trends that emerged in recent years of the 19th century. It presents common features:

• Nonconformism
• Desire for renovation
• Cosmopolitanism
• Opposition to naturalism

Scholars have given different interpretations of modernismo:

• Some consider modernismo a literary movement that developed between 1855 and 1915, marked by aestheticism and escapism.
• Others, such as Ricardo Gullón, think modernismo is not a literary movement but a renewal of attitudes and sensibilities, with many different manifestations marked by aestheticism and escapism.
• Fernando Lázaro believes the true character of modernismo as a break with the movement of its aesthetic begins around 1880, and its peak reaches its height before the First World War.

Origins of Modernismo

The modernist movement is a consequence of several roots:

a) Historical and social roots

The modernist movement was marked by an anticonformist attitude, caused by the disagreement of writers with the spirit of a utilitarian society in Europe during the second half of the 19th century. Modernist writers rejected the society and formalities required by it, and sought the freedom to express themselves in different ways. Their attitudes against the social landscape can be summarized as follows: some manifested in their works their opposition to taking a position in the established policy system; others expressed most disagreement through isolation from society, with almost no compromise.

b) Literary roots

Literary modernismo was born in Spanish America, in a period after its independence, which was achieved in the nineteenth century. This situation explains that both the Spanish literary tradition and other literatures, such as French, were welcomed.

Influence of French literature

French literature interested the modernist movements developed in the second half of the 19th century, particularly Parnassianism and symbolism.

• a) Parnassianism sought above all the formal perfection of the literary work. The escapism of Parnassianism had other features.
• b) Symbolism: symbolists also believed that art is limited to the reality it represents. They proposed to go beyond what can be perceived by the senses. The mission of the artist is to discover these "other realities" and transmit them to the reader.

Spanish influence

• a) Spanish Bécquer and Spanish symbolists.
• b) Of the more classical sources, they were interested in the Alexandrine verse, which became the verse most used by modernismo. The syncretic art of modernismo intertwines three currents: the foreign one (Parnassianism and symbolism), the American one (literary and native traditions), and the Spanish one (Bécquer and Clarín).

Themes of Modernismo

Its themes can be classified into two large blocks:

• 1) Sensual literature, in which the search for formal perfection, influenced by Parnassianism, is dominant.
• 2) Literature of privacy, in which other works reveal the authors' inclination toward the private expression of their own feelings. These vitalist or anguished feelings were influenced by symbolism.

There are also intermediate currents of the first series with two opposite effects:

• a) Spiritual crisis: sensations of melancholy and sadness. This causes an exaltation of all that goes against the rational and moral, and enters passionate, great, and mystical works. The feelings are expressed through a wide range of symbols such as "the late afternoon," "autumn," and "the banks..."
• b) Evasion: the writer is immersed in reality and dislikes it. He wants to manifest some measure of disagreement, to forget most of it, and prefers a different reality to escape from it. Three different manifestations of evasion are found:
  • Dream worlds
  • Temporal evasion toward past times, supposedly more beautiful and freer
  • Spatial evasion toward exotic or oriental places in which the Western world is not found
• c) Cosmopolitanism: the need for evasion leads to cosmopolitanism, which culminated in devotion to the big city (Paris) and Bohemian life.
• d) Feeling of love: love swings between two opposite effects:
  • Idealization of woman as an impossible and unattainable love
  • A vitalist conception of love, marked by sensuality and the pursuit of pleasure
• e) Search for roots: Spanish American modernists were busy recovering the pre-Columbian past and its myths, in order to affirm themselves against Spanish or North American tradition.

Modernist Style

The basis of the aesthetic intention that differentiates modernism from the mediocrity of the bourgeoisie is the cultivation of beauty and the cultivation of a structured literature that gives value to the other qualities they preferred. From this attitude came the search for what is called aestheticism. Its characteristics are:

• a) An attempt to reflect multiple sensory values through the word.
• b) Abundant tonic resources, achieving musicality useful for the verse.
• c) Enrichment of the lexicon with cultured words and the introduction of technical terms.
• d) Abundant adjectivation, with many ornamental uses.
• e) Synesthesia.
• f) Original and dazzling metaphors and images.
• g) Dodecasyllabic and alexandrine verses.