Spanish Modernist Literature - Parnasianism and Symbolism

Parnasianism and Symbolism

The influence of these two movements, which were developed in France since the middle of the 19th century, was very important to the appearance of the Modernism in Spain.

• The Parnasianism, so called because it first appeared in the magazine "Le Parnasse Contemporain" (1866–1876). This publication postulates art for art's sake, far from the important and sentimental ambitions that the Romanticism defended. Those in favor tried to create "beautiful objects", approaching exotic subjects and ornamenting them with a musical language, but which are cold. The father of this school was Leconte de Lisle.

• The Symbolism, however, has a transcendental ambition. The main figure of the movement is Charles Baudelaire. For the author of The flowers of evil, all the universe, spiritual and terrenal, forms a harmonious, united set to each other by invisible correspondences, and the personality of the poet is the one in charge of revealing them. This way, for example, a sun hiding could be seen by the writer as a decay symbol, as well as the sunrise would symbolize the Renaissance. This assumption suggests comparisons to the poet, but fundamentally metaphors.