modernismo (mōthārnē`smō), movement in Spanish literature that had its beginning in Latin America. It was paramount in the last decade of the 19th cent. and the first decade of the 20th cent.

Modernismo derived from French symbolism and the Parnassian school. However, too much stress can be laid on the French influence, for modernismo was spontaneous, and it borrowed from many sources, including the Spanish classics, Edgar Allan Poe, and Walt Whitman. Modernist poetry often created an exotic tapestry of distant landscapes dotted with symbolic swans, peacocks, lilies, and princesses. In some of its aspects it represented, like contemporary movements in other literatures, a rejection of the materialist world of the day.

Modernismo is now usually said to have first appeared in the poetry of the Cuban leader, José Martí. Julian del Casal, Salvador Díaz Mirón, José Asunción Silva, and Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera were also writing fin de siècle verse in the modernist vein before modernismo became an acknowledged world event with the publication, in Chile, of Azul [blue], a volume of poetry by Rubén Darío Darío, Rubén (r
..... Click the link for more information. , in 1888. The Nicaraguan Darío was the great genius of the movement. His exotic, highly colored, and finely wrought verse made a sensation, and soon a host of little magazines and literary groups were forwarding his ideas of elegant form, carefully chosen images, and subtle word music.

The modernists were supremely conscious of their art, and there was more than a hint of artificiality in their works. Among the leading figures of the movement were Leopoldo Lugones Lugones, Leopoldo (lāōpōl`dō l
..... Click the link for more information. , Julio Herrera y Reissig Herrera y Reissig, Julio (h
..... Click the link for more information. , Ricardo Jaimes Freyre, Guillermo Valencia Valencia, Guillermo (gēyār`mō välān`syä), 1873–1943, Colombian poet, one of the leaders of modernismo .
..... Click the link for more information. , José Santos Chocano Chocano, José Santos (hōsā` sän`tōs chōkä`nō)
..... Click the link for more information. , and Amado Nervo Nervo, Amado (ämä`thō nār`vō), 1870–1919, Mexican poet.
..... Click the link for more information. . Modernismo had an extraordinary prose writer in José Enrique Rodó Rodó, José Enrique (hōsā` ānrē`kā rôdō`)
..... Click the link for more information. . The movement constituted a sudden and vigorous intellectual awakening in Latin America and had profound repercussions even in politics and economics. Manuel Ugarte, Francisco and Ventura García Calderón, and Rufino Blanco-Fombona all had their roots in modernismo.

The movement had a powerful effect in remolding Spanish literary ideas and language and was the first Spanish American movement to affect peninsular Spain deeply. The Spanish writers of the Generation of '98 Generation of '98, Spanish literary and cultural movement in the first two decades of the 20th cent. It was so named by Azorín (see Martínez Ruiz, José ) in 1913 to designate a group of young writers who, in the face of defeat (1898) in the
..... Click the link for more information. , notably Miguel de Unamuno, Ramón del Valle Inclán, and Juan Ramón Jiménez were influenced by modernismo. The force of the movement began to wane after 1914 as many writers became increasingly concerned with the consideration of the social and economic problems of a changing world. Other more extreme aesthetic movements arose, such as ultraísmo (see Borges, Jorge Luis Borges, Jorge Luis (hôr`hā l
..... Click the link for more information. ), but in general the social and political strains grew stronger.

After World War I the writers of the new generation revolted against the mannerisms and hollow elegance of early modernismo, and in the words of Enrique González Martínez González Martínez, Enrique (ānrē`kā gōnsä`lĕs märtē`nĕs)
..... Click the link for more information. they "wrung the neck of the deceitful swan." The Brazilian artistic renaissance, which began in 1922, was regional in nature and is also termed modernismo: its principal theorizer was Mário de Andrade and most vocal proponent was Oswald de Andrade, both from São Paulo.

Bibliography

See G. M. Craig, The Modernist Trend in Spanish-American Poetry (1934, repr. 1971), an anthology; study by W. Martins (1971).

Modernismo

Spanish-language literary movement of the late 19th–early 20th century, founded by Rubén Darío. Reacting against the sentimental romantic writers then popular in Latin America, modernistas wrote on exotic themes and often about artificial worlds—the ancient past, the distant Orient, and the lands of childhood fancy and sheer creation. With “art for art's sake” as their creed, they brought about the greatest revitalization of language and poetic technique in Spanish since the 17th century. Its adherents included Peru's José Santos Chocano (1875–1934) and Cuba's José Martí. Though the movement was over by 1920, its influence continued well into the 20th century.