MODERNISMO (1870-1920)

* Model of discourse commensurate to the new era of Spanish America

* First to take up the challenge of modernity ==> SHIFTS IN THE ROLES OF POET, LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

a) MODERNISMO AND MODERNITY

Industrial revolution and capitalism. Materialistic and spiritual aspirations

b) MODERNISMO AND ROMANTICISM

Search for an alternative to the positivism and materialistic swept = world view = system of correspondences.

c) MODERNISMO AND REALISM

Political and worldly images of change --> reveal hidden realities

Modernista writers:

  • experience changes brought by Modernity
  • witness the loss of "magical" worldview due to science d
  • efine poet as visionary outcast live the tension between "here" and "there"
  • "I shall call modern the art which devotes its little technical expertise ... to present the fact that the unpresentable exists. To make visible that there is something which can be conceived and which can neither be seen nor made visible." (Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition, 78)

    Characteristics of Modernismo

  • I) Inventive nature of language and adaptation of different literary sources.
  • II) Rejection of Spanish models
  • III) Escapism = exploration and return to ancient civilizations --> source of inspiration/ reservoir of responses to the modern world
  • IV) Grappled with various modes of discourse => find a vision and a language proper to "modern"Spanish America
  • V) Socio-economic context strengthening of national state integration to world market urbanization and europeanization (cultural)
  • VI) Philosophical context Positivism and social darwinism = order and progress
  • Modernista literary responses

    Longing for wholesness, innocence, paradise.

    Language of unity = analogy images of harmony and unity from occultism reconciliation of modern science and ancient wisdom.

    José Martí (Cuba, 1852-1895)

    Merges poetics and politics infused with trascendental impetus to shape national identity.

    "Under the pretext of completing the human being, they interrupt him. No sooner is he born than they are already standing beside his cradle with great and strong bindings prepared in their hands, the philosophies, the religions, the passions of their fathers, the political systems. And they tie him and they girdle him, and man is already, for his whole life on earth, a bridled horse... One comes into life like wax. and fate empties us into premade molds. Created conventions deform true existence, and true life becomes like a silent current that slips, invisible, beneath the feigned life, not always felt by the very one in whom it works its holy deed, in the same way that the mysterious Guadiana River follows a long path silently beneath Andalucian lans." (Prologue to Juan Antonio Pérez Bonalde's El poema del Niágara, III )

    "To assure human free will; to leave to the spirits their own seductive form; to not tarnish virgin dispositions with the imposition of anotherÕs prejudices; to ready them to take what is useful for itself alone, without confusing them nor pushing them along a marked route. ... Neither is there room for literary originality nor does political freedom subsist as long as spritirual freedom is not assured. ManÕs first task is to reconquer himself." (ibid, III).

    Poetry--> revolution through the word and revolutionize the language to make Spanish America more sensitive to the future "La expresión es la hembra del acto."

    Other characteristics

  • eagerness to tap the power of the dreamed, illogical visions. Integrity (sinceridad) should prevail over decorum .
  • Poetry born from life. "Poetry is the absolute reality. ThatÕs the core of my philosophy."
  • Inspiration above all: "[La poesía] No nace de pensar ni del que la escribe: ¡Nace escrita! El poeta no ha de ser soberbio, porque no crea lo que parece suyo. Lo que brota de él como llama súbita, que en él prende, ya que su cráneo muro escaso, ¡eso es poesía! Lo que incuba y trabaja con la mente, y pule con estilo cuidadoso, y labora con pena grandísima, esa es la mera jerga del oficio, hecho a calor de estufa, que acabará con las pasiones que la engendran, y no soportará la luz del sol." (Obras Completas, vol. 15, 268).
  • MARTI and THE SYMBOL

  • analogy and irrationalism originality and individuality sublimation of the objects
  • IMPRESSIONISM AND EXPRESSIONISM

    "Todo este cuadro tiene el nervio, el elástico músculo, la esbelta curva de un caballo árabe.... ¡Cómo se dibuja sin líneas! ¡Cómo se agrupa sin confundir! ¡Cómo un toque de color es una cabeza, un dorso, ..., un brazo! ¡Cómo una desviación súbita del pincel es un pliegue magnífico! Ni una postura es incorrecta. Siendo osadas todas, y todas nuevas, no es rebuscada ninguna. La naturaleza es cera a los ojos de ese hombre. ¡Ay del pintor para quien sea hierro! Las banderas, rotas, flamean. Aquel montón de color azulado es, indudablemente, un monte." (On Fortuny's La batalla de Wad-Ras, O.C., tomo 15, 143).

    "Los impresionistas, venidos al arte en una época sin altares, ni tienen fe en lo que no ven, ni padecen el dolor de haberla perdido. Llegan a la vida en los países adelantados donde el hombre es libre. "

    "... Lo que los pintores anhelan, faltos de creencias perdurables por que batallar, es poner en el lienzo las cosas con el mismo esplendor y realce con que aparecen en la vida. Quieren pintar en el lienzo plano con el mismo relieve con que la Naturaleza crea en el espacio profundo. Quieren obtener conartificios de pincel lo que la Naturaleza obtiene con la realidad de distancia. Quieren reproducir los objetos con el ropaje flotante y tornasolado con que la luz fugaz los enciende y reviste. Quieren copiar las cosas, no como son en sí, sino como en una hora transitoria las pone con efectos caprichosos la caricia de la luz. Quieren, por la implacable sed del alma, lo nuevo y lo imposible. Quieren pintar como el sol pinta, y caen." (ibid, tomo 19, 305)

    Julián del Casal (Cuba): Hojas al viento (1890), Nieve (1892), Bustos y rimas (1893).

    José Aunción Silva (Colombia): El libro de versos, Gotas amargas, Versos varios. Novel: De sobremesa

    "If conscience is the claws with which you hurt yoursef and with which you can destroy what is presentedto you and you can seize your part of the booty of vixtory, do not sink them into your flesh, turn them outward; be the superman, the Übermensch free of all prejudice, and with the calloused hands with which you, stupid, still make the sign of the cross, pick up a little of the explosive mixtures that poison you as you breathe their fumes, and make the ostentatious dwelling of the rich individual that exploits you break into pieces, with the explosion of fulminatory picrate. Once the masters are dead, the slaves will be the owners andthey will profess the true morality in which lust, murder, and violence are virtues. Do you understand, worker?" (De sobremesa, 180). "...Look: from the dark depth of the Orient, homeland of the gods, Buddhism and magic return to reconquer the Western world. Paris, the metropolis, opens its doors to them like Rome opened them to the cults of Mitra and Isis; there are fifty theosophic centers, hundreds of societies that investigate mysterious psychic phenomena; ..., humanity saved, the new faith lights its torches in order to illuminate the dark path!" (ibid, 181-182)

    Modernismo

    Ruben Darío (Nic., 1867-1916)

    "Todo lo renovó Darío: la materia, el vocabulario, la métrica, la magia peculiar de ciertas palabras, la sensibilidad del poeta y de sus lectores. Su labor no ha cesado ni cesará. Quienes alguna vez lo combatimos comprendemos hoy que lo continuamos. Lo podemos llamar libertador.Õ

    Tomado de "Mensaje en honor de Rubén Darío", escrito por Borges, en 1967.

    Azul (1888): poems, vignettes and short stories=> mixed of genres and modes of discourse.

    "Without brushes, without palette, without paper, without pencil, fleeing the excitement and confusion, the machines and bundles, the monotonous noise of the trolleys and the jostling of horses with their ringing of hooves on the stones, the throng of merchants, the shouts of newspaper vendors, the incessant bustle and unending fervor of this port of search of impressions and scenes, Ricardo, an incorrigible lyric poet, climbed up Happy Hill, which, elegant like a great flowering rock, displays its green sides, its mound crowned by smiling houses, terraced at the summit, homes surrounded by gardens, wit waving curtains of vines, cages of birds, vases of flowers, attractive railings, and blond children with angelic faces." ("En Chile").

    Characteristics * Poet = seer * Aspiration toward harmony linked to fulfillment of sexual desire ==> eroticism = mysticism +rejection of social constraints. * Tension between optimism and hopelessness.

    Prosas Profanas (1896): Formally innovative and great musical and aesthetic play + search for artistic and spiritual freedom ==> Watershed of the movement --> Prologue = "manifesto nonmanifesto"

    * Criticism to a close-minded society
    * Reinterpretation and revitalization of models
    * Cosmopolitan vision = Latin America and Europe in balance
    * Trascend restriction of modern life through the rediscovering of the soul of language and its music.
    * Mandate = create.

    Cantos de vida y esperanza (1905) : Poet more willing to express his sense of difference, of being Latin American. More somber, mature voice.. Prologue: poetry grounded in the aristocracy of thought and nobility of art; American origin of the movement; increased flexibility of Spanish poetic expression; political statement (artist true to himself).

    Characteristics:

    * Waving tone between dispair and hope.
    * Erotic poetry less rebellious or light hearted = perfection of creation
    * Modern life imposses more interruptions
    * Sense of guilt for failing his roles as a seer.

    El canto errante (1907)

    Prologue: reference to violent context; rejection for molds and cliché; art = free from structural and social contraints, born from the accord of body and soul (language and inspiration).

    Characteristics:

    *Different styles (epistola, ode, etc.), themes (about poets and poetry, ancient Mediterranean cultures, America, reincarnation, etc) and verse forms.

    Sources:

    Jrade, Cathy. Modernismo, Modernity and the Development of Spanish American Literature. Austin: Univ.of Texas Press, 1998.

    Morales, Carlos Javier. La poética de José Martí y su contexto.

    Hauser, Arnold. The Social History of Art.