Los discursos de la modernidad: Nación, imperio y estética en el fin del siglo español (1895–1924) (review)

Los discursos de la modernidad: Nación, imperio y estética en el fin del siglo español (1895–1924) attempts to bring a new perspective, extrapolating the discourses from the literary oeuvres of a precursor and two authors of the Generation of 98 (Unamuno, Ganivet and Valle-Inclán) as sources of influence that tried to slow down or even prevent the process of Spanish modernization and democratization in the unsteady socio-political reality orchestrated by Antonio Cánovas del Castillo during the Restoration period and beyond, under the reign of Alfonso XIII (1898–1923). The book has three chapters with an introduction and a conclusion. Each chapter covers one author.

In chapter one, Barriuso analyzes Unamuno’s organic nationalism based on the spirit of the people and tradition. He evaluates the discourse embedded in the concept “intrahistoria” through which, according to Barriuso, Unamuno tried to stir the masses to provoke social instability in order to enact a centralist, oligarchic and hierarchic government under the tutelage of an elite minority of intellectuals, who would guide and educate the people (41–43). He, then, interprets that the kind of influence Unamuno was seeking went beyond the voice of guidance and education of the people and wanted almost a religious type of correspondence and obedience; according to Barriuso, Unamuno placed religion above politics in the sense that he wanted to bring about a theocratic form of government with a transcendental outlook (52–53).

In chapter two, Barriuso examines Ganivet’s pro-expansionist, imperialist discourse focusing mainly in La conquista del reino de Maya por el último Pío Cid. Barriuso treats La conquista as a political document or plan that was to be implemented in reality. He considers that Ganivet’s vision of Spain was a fusion among different forms of idealism: spiritualism, traditionalism, mysticism and imperialism, the last in the medieval sense of the crusade: conquering to bring Christianity and civilization, in this case, to Africa. Barriuso concludes that Ganivet’s proposal in La conquista was an outdated conception which had no reception in reality. Barriuso reflects that while Ganivet’s vision of expansionist Spain was archaic, remote and illusory, his aesthetic was modern for two reasons; first, La conquista has an open ending and second, he continually contradicts his own assertions throughout the book (102).

Using the same method of analysis, Barriuso in chapter three considers the modernist discourse in Valle-Inclán’s works: La Lámpara maravillosa, Las sonatas, Comedias bárbaras and Luces de Bohemia in the order given. According to Barriuso, there is a similar operative duality between content and form in Valle-Inclán’s and Ganivet’s discourses: archaic, utopian, mythic and rural ideas embedded in the context intermingle with innovative and inventive writing styles.

Barriuso’s book is well researched, intelligently argued and interesting; however, he often cites critical theorists, historians, literary critics and philosophers on the same paragraph without sorting and clarifying the input of their ideas with the text he is analyzing and interpreting. Moreover, Barriuso’s book is classified under the genre of “Colección Historia.” While the background is set in a historical socio-political reality, Barriuso provides little or no evidence, apart from a few interpreted references, that the discourses found in the literary works of the above mentioned authors were intended to be realistic socio-political models to be implemented in reality. Hence, his analysis is not based on history. Another vulnerable point of the book is that Barriuso hardly clarifies the terms modernity, modernism and modernization for the context he uses them. He cites various contrasting definitions of Smith, Berman, Frisby, Bauman, Derrida, Bradbury, McFarlane, Quinones, Calinescu and Casullo (14–15) and says is impossible to reach a “consensus” of these terms among critics: “es una utópica empresa sobre la que difícilmente puede existir un consenso crítico” (15). While...