Spanish Literary Modernism: '98 Generation and Early Drama

The Generation of '98 and Early 20th Century Theater

Characteristics of the Generation of '98

Most writers belonging to the Generation of '98 shared a rebellious attitude against bourgeois values. Their texts prominently feature themes such as the landscape, old cities, and national identity.

Stylistically, they advocated a return to simplicity, sincerity, and expressive, living language. Given their profound subjectivity, each writer developed a clearly distinct personal style.

Major Figures in the Generation of '98

Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936)

His earlier books include existential reflections on time, life as a struggle, death, and descriptions of the vicissitudes of everyday life. Key early works include:

• Poetry
• Rosario lyrical
• Sonnets

In 1920, he published The Christ of Velázquez, a long poem written in blank hendecasyllables.

Poems written during his years of exile focus on loneliness, longing, and the obsession with death, exemplified by:

• Ballad of Exile

Antonio Machado (1875–1939)

His first book, Solitudes, released in 1903 and reprinted with many additions in 1907, appeared during the heyday of Modernism. A tone of melancholy and suffering predominates. The main themes include love, the passage of time, and loneliness.

Machado's use of symbols is highly characteristic, including: the road, the river, the sea, and the garden.

Campos de Castilla (1912) offers a poetic consideration of the Castilian landscape, humanized by the emotion of lost love.

Early 20th Century Spanish Theater

1. Traditional Theater

Bourgeois Comedy: Jacinto Benavente

Jacinto Benavente composed works characterized by restraint in the composition of situations and characters, and by the thorough realism of their staging. Some of his notable works include:

• The Saturday Night
• Autumn Roses

Poetic Theater

This genre deals with historical subjects and employs great modernist meters. Their main proponents were Eduardo Marquina, Francisco Villaespesa, and the Machado brothers.

Comic Theater

Notable figures include the brothers Álvarez Quintero and Carlos Arniches, known for his "grotesque tragedy" (*tragedia grotesca*).

2. Innovative Theater

Ramón María del Valle-Inclán

Valle-Inclán's dramatic production begins with the dramas of decline (e.g., The Marquis de Bradomín), moves through the Galician environment dramas (e.g., Comedia bárbara, Divine Words), and farces (e.g., La Marquesa Rosalinda), culminating in the Esperpento.

The Esperpento grotesquely deforms certain aspects of characters and situations, producing a caricatured vision that is alternately comic and macabre. Valle-Inclán called Luces de bohemia (1920) an Esperpento, among others.

Federico García Lorca

His dramatic production expresses the problems of life and history through highly connotative language.

• Farces: These often develop the conflict of convenience marriages between the old and the young.
• "Impossible Theater": Works like The Public show the influence of Surrealism.
• Tragedies and Dramas: His major tragedies and dramas (Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba) are set in a rural environment where natural forces impose a tragic destiny.