Ruins, Crisis, and Travel in a Modernizing Hispanic World

This section of Hispanófila focuses on literary works of the turn of the 19^th century and includes Romantic, Modernista, and avant-garde authors. The richness of the literary selections is derived from the cultural diversity of the authors mentioned, who write in Spanish and Galician and are from Europe and Latin America. The organization of the articles avoids focusing on movements but instead runs along themes that connect them. Some of these themes include the crisis at the end of the 19^th century in Spain caused by a loss of its territories in Latin America, modernization and its effects during the beginning of the 20^th century, and travel, including how some travel literature criticized modernity and how authors travel between race, class, and gender to show a broader spectrum of culture. At the risk of stating the obvious, it is worthwhile to interweave the most important canonical characteristics as well as relevant historical events of the Romantic, Modernista, and avant-garde periods in order to better understand the background of the authors mentioned, the cultural and historical setting in which the authors wrote, and the critical relevance of this group of essays.

Toward the end of the 19^th century, Spain had lost almost its entire colonial empire, culminating with the loss of Puerto Rico and Cuba by the end of the Spanish-American war in 1898. In addition to Spain losing its territories, the country also had to deal with the effects of the Carlist Wars, a series of civil clashes between liberal-republicans and traditional-royalists. Because of these obstacles, Spain’s economy was nearly bankrupt and the cultural morale was low. Even though Galician writer Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885) authored Ruinas before the final loss of the Spanish colonies, in it she illustrates the crisis in progress in Spain during the 19^th century. María do Cebreiro Rábade Villar, in her article “Arqueología y mundo subjetivo en la novela Ruinas (1866), de Rosalía de Castro,” focuses on the idea of ruins not only as spatial representations of time passing that show its destructive quality and the need for reconstruction, but also as an indication of the extinction of borders between language and the world, past and present, and subjectivity and objectivity. The critic uses theories from Sigmund Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents (1930), Walter Benjamin’s On the Concept of History (1940), and Juan Barcia Caballero’s De re phrenopática (1915) to illustrate the concept of ruins as not only the core of history but also as a metaphorical connection between the past and the present of the psyche. According to do Cebreiro, de Castro uses “ruinas vivientes,” or three people living in the second half of the 19^th century to illustrate “síntomas de la desaparición de tres modos de vida.” These ruinas vivientes are a way to connect archeology with human life and the past with the present to show time moving and culture changing. Ruinas illustrates the substitution of old societal values with new ones.

Out of the low morale during the crisis of 19^th century Spain originated the Generation of 98. While the label of Generation of 98 is debated and perhaps inaccurate, here it will be used to name authors such as Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936), Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936), and Manuel Machado (1874-1947) who were concerned about the identity of Spain and who renewed classical modes of writing while also introducing Spain to new philosophical inquiries. In the articles of this section, Valle-Inclán illustrates the deterioration of the imperial myth of Spain after the crisis of 98, Unamuno renews the classical mode of writing of the Greek tragedy, and Machado shows decadent themes.

Ramón del Valle-Inclán is one of Spain’s most important authors of the 20^th century and also represents the so-called Generation of 98. His renowned Sonata de estío (1903) is the story of the Marqués de Bradomín, who travels to Mexico and...