His figure was unmistakable: one-armed, with long hair and goat beards, a hat, and a scarf. But underneath his bohemian eccentricity is his rigorous dedication to his work as a writer and an arrogant pursuit of new ways. Politically it began ascribed to traditionalism. He said, “I am a Carlist by aesthetics. Carlism has for me the beauty of the great cathedrals ”. In fact, raised in an archaic society, he sticks to old values ​​out of aversion to the bourgeois world, which he considers mechanized and ugly. From 1915 on, he took a radical turn and adopted revolutionary ideas. He continues to oppose the same, but no longer from an idyllic traditionalism, but in the name of the utopian humanism neighboring anarchism. However, it is very difficult to separate what was a political conviction and aesthetic stance.

The extensive production of this author brings together novels, short stories, dramatic works, and poems. In all these genres a profound evolution can be seen, parallel to their ideological change. Broadly speaking, he goes from an elegant and nostalgic Modernism to critical positions neighboring those of 98 (hence he has been called the "prodigal son" of the generation). However, both in one and another modality, he contributed a strong personal it. Known for his "grotesque", with a torn style, sour even in his humor, where he does not stop before the most extreme repulsive touches, all with the aim of accentuating the absurd or deformed. It is, however, his prose the fruit of very careful preparation, genuinely brilliant.

Luces de bohemia

El marqués de Bradomín

Martes de Carnaval

Retablo de la avaricia, la lujuria y la muerte

Luces de Bohemia is a play with a bitter tragic sense about literary life in Spanish society.

Theater play

The Generation of '98 is made up of a series of writers who respond with their literary works to the tragic awareness of decline that is perceived in Spain at the end of the 19th century. In 1895 began the rebellion of the overseas colonies against the metropolis. The decisive intervention of the United States in favor of the colonies, particularly in Cuba, forces Spain to sign the Treaty of Paris, by which it abandons what was left of its old empire. Human and economic losses will go down in history under the name of "Disaster of 98". 

The founding nucleus of writers from the Generation of '98 is made up of Azorín, Pío Baroja, and Ramiro de Maeztu. Autodidacticism and their religious heterodoxy are some of the traits that most identify them, in addition to their revolutionary ideas and their admiration for similar philosophers of the time. They will be joined by Unamuno, Antonio Machado, and Valle-Inclán. All of them are concerned about the politics of the moment, the historical problems of Spain, and its desire for Europeanization. 

From an aesthetic point of view, his style is characterized by a sustained opposition to traditional rhetoric, as well as a taste for the use of traditional speaking in their writings. The subjectivist character of the literary movement impregnates these authors' works with an intense subjectivism, notably in their descriptions of the Castilian landscape, where what is seen is inseparable from the way of looking, fusing landscape with their soul in an intense combination of reality and sensitivity.

Generation of '98

Antonio Machado publishes his collection of poems Soldedades, galerias y otros poemas.

Azorín publishes Castilla, a book that represents the quintessence of Azorín's work, contemplating the landscape as a "small" story passed through time and seeking in literature an expression of the national spirit.

Antonio Machado publishes Campos de Castilla, a book that includes a mixture of poems, proverbs and a romance, in which the autor captures the tark landscape and spirit of Castile.

José Ortega y Gasset prublishes Meditaciones del Quijote, a profound introspection on the universal meaning of life.

Miguel de Unamuno publishes his novel Niebla, a story of impossible love that explores the confusion of existence.

Juan Ramón Jiménez publishes Platero y yo, a prose poem about his homeland in Andalusia, tells the story of a man and his donkey.

Ortega y Gasset publishes La deshumanización del arte, a philosophical book in which he alludes to avant-garde art and literature (the “isms”) that emerged after the First World War.

Rafael Alberty publishes Marinero en tierra, where the poet recovers the memory of the immediacy of the sea in his childhood.

Marcel Proust publishes In Search of Lost Time, the story of Proust's own life, told as an allegorical search for truth.

Frank Kafka publishes The Metamorphosis, the life struggles of a man that wakes up one morning inexplicably transform into a huge insect.

Herman Hesse publishes Demian, a demonic hero who rejects Chistian morality with contempt.

The play Six Characters in Search of an author, by Luigi Pirandello is performed for the first time. The work is an aburdist methatheatrical play in which the caracters claim that they are incomplete creations of an author who couldn't finish the work for which they were conceived. 

Rainer Maria Rilke publishes his collectionof then elegies,Duino Elegies, a loud cry out of his solitude.

Italo Calvino publishes Zeno's Conscience, a novel about a neurotic Italian businessman.

World economic crisis starts in New York.

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Luces de Bohemia (1924)

By Ramón Valle -Inclán

Time Period: Generation of '98

Genre: Theater play

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