Spanish Narrative: Existentialism and Renewal 1940-1970
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Novel Experimental: Renewal of the Novel
Most Important Innovations:
- Argument: Loses significance in some novels and completely disappears in others.
- Characters: The individual character returns, but always in conflict with itself.
- Structure: The external structure disappears, and the chapter introduces the sequence in internal chronological order.
- Point of View: The omniscient narrator returns and shares digressions. It reproduces the interior monologue of a character's thoughts as they arise in their consciousness. Digressions are comments the author makes about some fact or character.
- Language and Style: The imposing baroque language is inadequate to the poor reality the author tells. Concerning the style, the features are:
- Risk variety of languages, cultism, etc.
- Extensive use of rhetorical figures.
- Introduction of fragments of other genres.
- Mixture of prose and verse and breaking the habitual typographical disposition; subsection as a significant unit.
- Abandonment of syntactic structure with the alteration or absence of punctuation and mixing of languages.
Luis Martin-Santos's Time of Silence, along with works by Camilo Jose Cela and Juan Marse, and Last Afternoons with Teresa are examples of this period.
The Narrative from 1940 to the 1970s
Existentialist Novels (1940s)
There are three key novels in the 1940s:
- The Family of Pascual Duarte by Camilo Jose Cela, which opens a trend called "Tremendismo".
- Nada by Carmen Laforet.
- The Shadow of the Cypress Is Long by Miguel Delibes.
Essential Features that Characterize the Narrative of this Period:
- Topics: The uncertainty of human destiny and the absence of communication or communication difficulties.
- Characters: The protagonist is a unique individual. They are violent, oppressed, or undecided people. They are placed in situations that lead them to limit violence, routine, or isolation.
- Internal Structure: Space is limited and is usually inside. Time is also reduced, and the narrative covers a few hours or days.
- Viewpoint: Predominantly first-person narrator, that is, the narrator and protagonist of the play are the same (autobiographical technique). Often uses the monologue.
- Style: Functional language prevails over the artistic.