Ramón del Valle-Inclán's Theatrical Cycles and the Esperpento Style

Ramón María del Valle-Inclán's Theater Periods

The dramatic works of Valle-Inclán are typically categorized into distinct cycles:

• Modernist Cycle

  This cycle includes works such as The Marquis of Bradomín (1906) and The Wilderness of Souls (1908).

• Mythic Cycle

  Starting with his native Galicia, Valle-Inclán creates a mythical and timeless world. Irrationality, violence, lust, greed, and death rule the destinies of the protagonists. Works belonging to this period include the trilogy Barbaric Words and Divine Comedies.

• Farce Cycle

  This is a group of comedies gathered in a volume called Plank's Puppet Education of Princes (1909, 1912, 1920). These works present a continuing contrast between the sentimental and the grotesque, and their puppet-show characters announce the arrival of the Grotesque Cycle.

• Grotesque Monstrosity Cycle

  It consists of Bohemian Lights (Luces de Bohemia) (1920 and 1924) and the volume Shrove Tuesday (1930). The grotesque, rather than a literary genre, is a new way of seeing the world, as it deforms and distorts reality to present the true image behind it. It uses parody, humanizes animals and objects, and objectifies or animalizes humans. Presented in this way, the characters lack humanity and are shown as puppets.

• Final Cycle

  In this last stage, Valle-Inclán brings his previous dramatic proposals to the extreme: the presence of the irrational and instinctive, dehumanized characters, stylized and puppet-like (guiñolescos), and the distorting technique of the esperpento. His works are set in the Altarpiece of Greed, Lust, and Death.

The Concept of Esperpento

Definition and Characteristics

The term Esperpento is used to describe a literary style created by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán (and the Generation of '98). It is characterized by the grotesque deformation of reality, serving an implicit critical intention toward society. Some key features are:

• The Grotesque as a Form of Expression:
  • The degradation of the characters.
  • The objectification of the characters, reduced to mere signs or dolls.
  • The animalization or merger of human and animal forms.
  • The literaturization of colloquial language, often invested with all kinds of intertextuality.
  • Abuse of contrast.
  • The mixture of the real world and nightmare distortion of the scene outside.
• The Systematic Distortion of Reality:
  • The appearance of ridicule and caricature of reality.
  • The deep meaning, semi-transparent, full of criticism and satirical intent, which constitutes the real moral lesson.
• The Presence of Death as a fundamental element.