Logo: Darío's
princess
Chapter 16: MODERNISMO (Lessons 16, 17)
The Chart for Chapter 16 and 17: Modernismo
Cultural-historical
framework:
With national consolidation accomplished, there is a search for refinement
in literature.
Modernismo: An original Latin American movement, although there are
influences from France (Parnassianism, symbolism).
Waves of immigration from Europe.
Latin concern over losing identity to Anglo-Saxon influences (Nordomania).
Approximate
dates:
Late 19th Century, early 20th.
Historical landmarks:
Spanish-American War, 1898.
Teddy Roosevelt and the Panama Canal (1903).
First Inter-American Conference (Washington, 1889).
Literature:
Modernismo: A highly esthetic movement of renewal.
"Art for art's sake"; form is more important than content.
Emphasis on the beautiful, the musical, the exotic.
Great use of symbols, metaphors, poetic imagery.
Has Classical influences, but is highly original.
Reaction against Positivism, Naturalism. Ivory-tower escapism.
José
Martí, 1853-1895
Rubén Darío, 1867-1916
José Enrique Rodó, 1871-1917.
The Arts:
There is no exact parallel, although impressionism and more abstract
forms of art, with their emphasis on color and form over content, are an
analogue to literary Modernism.
The use of the photographic camera frees painting from its function
of capturing reality. Photography as art.
An "anti-Academic" current which stresses simplicity.
Popular and folk art paid more attention.
Mexican "calaveras" (skull and skeleton drawings).
Lesson 16: Modernismo
I. "Modernismo"
As the 19th Century drew to a close, much of Latin America found itself
transformed by the progress brought about by the foreign investors and their
allies among the upper levels of their societies. The Positivists had encouraged
immigration, especially from Europe, in their belief that this would make
their nations more European. Behind this rationale was also the racist attitude
that their Indigenous, Mestizo and Black populations had little to offer.
These European immigrants flocked to the cities, adding their numbers to
those of the less privileged who had left rural poverty in the hopes of
finding a better life in an urban environment. The growth was impressive
in cities such as Buenos Aires, where at one point every third inhabitant
had been born in Europe (mainly Spain or Italy).
The fast-growing cities such as Mexico and Buenos Aires reflected the
elites' imitation of French culture, and the buildings put up around the
turn of the century show a strong French influence.
Political, social and economic life continued to be dominated by the
old conservative order of landlord-politician, army officer and priest,
although Positivism was changing their outlook. Their nation's dependency
on the center-periphery economic model continued, and it was fair to say
that the system was a neocolonial one because of the control the center
exercised on the periphery. Meanwhile, the middle class, which had always
been small in Latin America, was growing with the influx of large numbers
of immigrants, many of them from Europe's lower middle class. Slavery had
been formally abolished, but the economic and social system tended to keep
the Black population at the bottom of the pyramid. The Indigenous population
defended itself as best it could from the inroads of Positivism by retreating
to its communities far from the Europeanized cities.
Art at the turn of the Century
The academies still exercised their influence, following French models,
although some new currents in Europe, such as Impressionism, had their Latin
American followers. But popular art grew in influence, and a movement which
could be called "anti-academic" also became more prominent as
the middle class increased its influence, and the old artistic models seemed
increasingly tired and slavishly imitative of the European ones. The "anti-academic"
current was especially strong in Mexico, where a type of popular painting
which was later to be called "primitive" was becoming more and
more widespread. This primitive painting was simple and direct, with little
depth or perspective, and yet with a charm and warmth that appealed to unsophisticated
eyes as well as the jaded connoisseur. Mexico also produced a unique category
of wood-block carving used in inexpensive and popular newspapers: the "calaveras",
or skull and skeleton drawings.
Popular protest was growing in Mexico after the long years of the Positivist
Díaz dictatorship, and the inexpensive broadsides illustrated by
these caricatures were one way the people could let their feelings be known.
Chief among the "calavera" artists was José Guadalupe Posada,
whose work had an influence on the Mexican Revolution of 1910 as well as
on the Mexican muralist school which grew out of that historic event.
The new literature: "Modernismo"
Spanish America in particular was ready for a renewal of literary traditions
as the reforming zeal of the realists and naturalists began to run its course.
This renewal was the literary movement known as "Modernismo",
and as it burst out in the last decade of the Century (and well into the
20th) it marked a coming of age of Latin American literature and the entry
into the modern period. It was a powerful movement that dominated and defined
much of what was written in the period and was quickly imitated in Spain,
which was a considerable tribute to its attraction. Modernism thus became
a watershed marker in the sense that Latin American literature, especially
poetry, can be defined in terms of whether it was Modernist, or came before
or after the Modernist period.
Modernism was new and escapist; it turned its back on the emotional
excesses of Romanticism, the naiveté of Costumbrismo, the photographic
representation of Realism, and the socio-political commitment of Naturalism
that was influenced by Positivism. The impact of Modernism stemmed from
its novelty, freshness, symbolism, and its unique images, color, and musical
sounds. The Modernist lived in an ivory tower, and from those heights could
ignore with disdain the ugly realities that existed below in the day to
day existence of lesser people.
This is a complex movement, with many roots and manifestations. It had
a strong Greco-Roman classical element, but the liveliest influences were
French Parnassianism and symbolism. The name of French Parnassianism was
derived from Mount Parnassus, the Greek mountain sacred to Apollo and the
muses. The tendency emphasized the form of what was written over the social
or political content, which was of little interest. Art was "for art's
sake", and was frequently disconnected from the real world. Its symbols
were the beautiful but cold statues of marble and the swan, an animal of
great and pure physical beauty, but of little practical use. The other major
root, French symbolism, used poetry to obtain musical effects through the
sounds of words and the rhythm of the verse.
Modernism inaugurated a period which, despite its brevity, was called
the "Golden Age" of Latin American literature. The principal authors
were widely imitated by adulators in America and Spain. After the emphasis
on the real, the ugly and the disagreeable which Realism and Naturalism
brought, this new current was an escape from these unfortunate aspects of
life by means of an art that was refined, perfectionist, cultured, precious
and cosmopolitan.
Despite these escapist tendencies, Modernism, like Romanticism, also
had a political side. This can be seen in some of the poetry of Rubén
Darío ("Walt Whitman", "To Roosevelt") and especially
in the essays of Rodó ("Ariel"). The principal political
theme is the ambivalence of Latin America toward the United States, very
evident after the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the Independence of Panama
in 1903. There was great admiration for the energy, efficiency, work and
dynamism of the powerful Anglo-Saxon neighbor to the north, but at the same
time there was much concern over the growing US tendency toward imperialism,
intervention, and excessive emphasis on material things.
II. The Master of Modernismo: Rubén Darío
The chief figure of Modernism was the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío
(a name he adopted, perhaps to suggest a link to the exotic and distant
empire of Darius). Darío crammed a lot of living (and considerable
excesses) into his half-century (1867-1916), working as a journalist, diplomat
and writer, often in places far removed from his homeland.
Darío is also responsible for giving Modernism its chief symbol:
the swan, selected because of its great beauty and grace, and also because
its main asset was its beauty (without any significant function). There
was also mythological symbolism involved, since the Greek god Zeus had taken
the form of a swan when he seduced Leda. Helen of Troy was the fruit of
that union, and she became immortal, a symbol of the imperishable nature
of true beauty inherited from her father-God. Darío's poem that follows
("The Swan") brings together these various elements of Modernism.
Darío knew the United States through travel and the careful reading
of its literature. He admired the energy of the country, and we can see
that admiration in the verses he wrote to honor Walt Whitman. But after
the Spanish American War and Teddy Roosevelt's intervention in Panama in
1903, Darío began to be concerned over the danger which US dynamism
and expansionism represented for the weaker and less organized nations to
the south.
"The Swan" by Rubén Darío
It was a divine hour for humankind.
Before, the Swan sung only at the moment of death.
But when the accent of the Wagnerian Swan was heard
it was in the midst of a dawn's aurora, it was revival.
Over the tempests of the human ocean
was heard the song of the Swan, unceasing,
dominating the hammering of the old Germanic Thor
or the trumpets that sing of the sword of Argantir.
O Swan! O sacred bird! If before, the pale Helena
blossomed full of grace from Leda's blue egg,
becoming the immortal princess of Beauty,
under your snow-white wings the new Poetry
conceives in the glory of light and harmony
eternal and pure Helen, incarnation of the ideal.
Fig. 16-6: Leda and the Swan
"Walt Whitman" (1890) by Rubén Darío
The grand old man lives in his country of iron,
A beautiful patriarch, serene and saintly.
With an olympic crease between his eyebrows
that dominates and conquers with noble charm.
His infinite soul seems like a mirror;
with his tired shoulders that merit a cloak;
and with his harp carved from seasoned oak
he sings his song like a new prophet.
Priest, whose breath is divine inspiration,
he announces better times in the future.
To the eagle he says: "Fly!", and to the sailor: "Row!"
And "Work!" to the hardy laborer.
Thus goes the poet on his way
with his splendid imperial countenance.
"To Roosevelt" by Rubén Darío
(Note: this poem makes a number of mythological and literary references.
Among them:
Nimrod was a legendary hunter and the earth's first great Imperialist.
See Genesis.
Leo Tolstoy (1828-1910), the great Russian novelist, preached a life
of abnegation and non-resistance.
Netzahualcoyotl was an Aztec emperor and the first Mexican poet known
by name (1403-1470).
Bacchus, god of wine, was reputed to have learned Pan's alphabet from
the Muses.
Cuauhtémoc, was the nephew of Moctezuma and the last emperor
of the Aztecs. He died at the hands of the Spaniards in 1525.)
The voice of the Bible, or Walt Whitman's poetry
is needed to reach you, Hunter!
Primitive and modern, simple and complex,
with one part Washington and four part Nimrod!
You are the United States
you are the future invader
of innocent America which still has Indian blood,
still prays to Jesus Christ and still speaks Spanish.
You are a proud and strong example of your race;
you are cultured; you are able; you oppose Tolstoy.
And breaking wild horses, or assassinating tigers
you are Alexander Nebuchadnezzar.
(You are a professor of Energy,
as today's lunatics would put it).
You believe that life is a fire,
and that progress is an eruption;
that where you aim your bullet
is where progress will also strike.
No.
The United States is powerful and great.
When it shakes there is a deep shudder
Through the enormous vertebrae of the Andes.
If you shout, it sounds like the roar of a lion.
Hugo has already said to Grant: "The stars are yours".
(The slowly dawning Argentine sun barely shines
and the Chilean star rises...) You are rich.
You join the cult of Hercules with that of Mammon;
and Liberty, with her lamp in New York
lights the path to easy conquest.
But our America which had poets
since the old times of Netzahualcoyotl,
and has preserved the footsteps of the great Bacchus;
who once learned Pan's alphabet;
who consulted the stars, who knew Atlantis;
whose name resonates to us through Plato;
who in the remote moments of his life
lived in light, in fire, in perfume, in love;
the America of the great Moctezuma, of the Inca,
the fragrant America of Christopher Columbus,
Catholic America, Spanish America,
the America in which the noble Cuauhtémoc said:
"I am not lying in a bed of roses"; that America
that trembles with hurricanes and lives off of love;
that America lives, oh men of Saxon eyes and barbaric souls.
It dreams. And loves, and resonates;
she is the daughter of the Sun.
Be careful. Long live Spanish America!
A thousand cubs of the Spanish lion are loose.
You would need, Roosevelt, to be by God Himself,
the terrible Rifleman and the strong Hunter
to be able to keep us in your steel claws.
And, although you have everything,
one thing is missing: God!
"Queen Mab's Veil" by Rubén Darío
Queen Mab, in her chariot made from a single pearl, pulled by four coleopters
with golden shells and jeweled wings, treading on a ray of the sun, slipped
through the window of a garret where the four men were: thin, bearded and
impertinent, complaining as if they were unfortunate.
In those days, the fairies had distributed their gifts to mortals. Some
had received mysterious rods which filled the heavy merchant's boxes with
gold; others were given marvelous ears of grain which, when shaken out filled
the granaries to overflowing with their riches; others received glasses
which let them peer into the innards of mother earth and see gold and precious
stones; others were given the thick hair and muscles of Goliath, and enormous
maces to beat burning iron; and some were given strong talons and agile
legs to mount their swift steeds who drink the wind and spread out their
manes as they speed down the roads.
The four men were complaining. Fortune had given one of the men a sculptor's
chisel, one the iris of a painter's eye, one the gift of rhythm, and the
last the blue sky.
Queen Mab heard their words. The first one said:
"And just look at this! Here I am in a great struggle with my life's
dreams in marble! I have cut the block loose and I have my chisel. You fellows
have: one of you gold, one harmony, one light. I think of the white and
divine Venus who shows her nudity under the sky-colored ceiling. I want
to give the mass of marble a line and plastic beauty; and may a colorless
blood like that of the gods flow through the statue's veins. I have the
spirit of Greece in my brain, and I love the nudes in which the nymph flees
and the faun unfolds its arms. Oh Fidas! You are for me proud and august
as a semi-god, in your niche of tender beauty, a king facing armies of beauties
who, in front of your eyes, strip off their magnificent tunics to show the
splendor of the shape of their rosy, snowy bodies.
You beat, you wound and you tame the marble, and the blows have a harmonic
sound like verse, and the cicada admires you, lover of the sun hidden among
the young grape arbors with virgin vines. Yours are the blond and luminous
Apollos, the severe and sovereign Minervas. You, like a magician, convert
rock into image and the elephant's tusk into festive cup. And when I see
your greatness I feel the martyrdom of my smallness. Because the glorious
times have passed. Because I tremble when facing the stares of today. Because
I contemplate the immense ideal and exhausted energies. Because as I chisel
the block I am overcome by discouragement."
And the second one said:
"Today I will break my paint brushes. What need do I have for the
iris of a painter's eye and this great palette of colors of the flowers
of the fields if in the end my painting won't be allowed into the gallery?
What will I have accomplished? I have gone to all the schools, to all the
artistic inspirations. I have painted the torso of Diana and the face of
the Madonna. I have asked the fields for their colors, their shades, and
I have adored the light as if she were a lover, I have embraced her as a
mistress. I have been an adorer of the nude, with all its magnificences,
with all the carnation-shades and fleeting half-tones. I have drawn on my
canvasses the halos of saints and the wings of cherubs. But always the terrible
disenchantment! The future! To sell a Cleopatra for two pesetas and be able
to buy lunch! And I am the one who could, in the trembling of my inspiration,
sketch out the great painting I have within me!"
And the third one said:
"My soul is lost in the great illusion of my symphonies, I fear
all disillusionments. I listen to all the harmonies, from Terpandro's lyre
to the orchestral fantasies of Wagner. My ideals shine brightly in midst
of the daring of my inspirations. I have the perception of the philosopher
who heard the music of the spheres. All noises can create passion, all echoes
can have combinations. Everything fits in the lines of my chromatic scale.
Vibrant light is a hymn, and at noontime the jungle finds an echo in
my heart. From the noise of the tempest to the song of a bird, everything
merges and links together in the infinite cadence. But at the same time,
I see only the crowd that scoffs, and the cell of the madhouse."
And the last one said:
"We all drink the clear water from the fountain of Jonia. But the
ideal floats in the blue; and in order for the spirits to enjoy the supreme
light it is necessary for them to climb the heights. I have the verse which
is honey, and the one that is gold, and the one that is red-hot iron. I
am the vase of celestial perfume; I have the perfume: I have love. Dove,
star, nest, lily, you know my dwelling-place. For the immeasurable flights
I have wings of eagles which open up the magical blows of the hurricane.
And to find consonants, I seek them in the mouths that join; and the kiss
bursts forth, and I write the verse, and then if you see my soul, you will
know my muse. I love the epic poems because from them springs the heroic
breeze that stirs the flags that wave on the lances and the pennants that
tremble over the helmets. I love the lyrical songs because they speak of
goddesses and of loves. I love the pastoral poems because they smell of
vervain and thyme, and the sacred breath of the ox crowned with flowers.
I would write something immortal, but I am overcome by a future of misery
and hunger."
Then Queen Mab, from the depths of her chariot made from a single pearl,
took a blue veil, almost imperceptible to the touch, as if shaped by sighs,
or of the gaze of blond and pensive angels. And that veil was the veil of
dreams, of sweet dreams, which make life rose-colored. And with it she wrapped
the four thin, bearded and impertinent men. And they stopped being sad,
because hope entered their bosoms, and the joyful sun entered their heads,
with the little devil of vanity, which comforts poor artists in their profound
disillusionments.
And since that time, in the garrets of the unhappy brilliant ones, where
the blue dream floats, they think of the future as if it were a new dawn,
and we hear the laughter which wipes away sadness, and we see them dancing
strange happy dances around a white Apollo, around a pretty landscape, around
an old violin, and around a yellowing manuscript.
"Sonatina" by Rubén Darío
The princess is sad... What ails the princess?
Her sighs escape that strawberry mouth
which has lost its laughter, which has lost its color.
The princess is pale on her throne of gold,
the keyboard of her sonorous clavichord is silent
and in a vase a forgotten flower faints.
The garden is full of triumphant peacocks;
the chatty dueña says banalities,
and the red-clothed buffoon pirouettes.
The princess laughs not, the princess feels not;
the princess pursues over the eastern sky
the vague dragonfly of a vague illusion.
Is she thinking perhaps of the prince of Golconda or China,
or in the one who has stopped his silver chariot
to look into her eyes and see the sweetness of light?
Or the king of the islands of fragrant roses,
or the one who is sovereign of clear diamonds,
or the proud owner of the pearls of Hormuz?
Oh!, the poor princess of the strawberry mouth
who wants to be a swallow, who wants to be a butterfly.
to have light wings, to fly under the sky,
to go to the sun on the luminous ladder of a light ray,
to greet the lilies with the verses of May,
or lose herself in the wind over the thunderous sea.
She no longer wants the palace, nor the silver distaff,
nor the enchanted falcon, nor the scarlet buffoon,
nor the unanimous swans on the lake of azure.
And the flowers are sad for the flower of the court;
the jasmines of orient, the lotuses of the north,
the dahlias of the west, and the roses of the south.
Poor little princess of the blue eyes!
She is imprisoned in her gold,
imprisoned in her veils
in the jail of marble in the palace royal;
the arrogant palace surrounded by guards,
and the hundred Black custodians
with their hundred halberds,
a wide-awake greyhound and a colossal dragon.
Of if she were just a butterfly
who left the chrysalis!
(The princess is sad. The princess is pale)
Of adored vision of gold, rose and ivory!
Who would fly to the land where the prince exists
(The princess is pale. The princess is sad)
more brilliant than the dawn, more beautiful than April!
"Hush, hush, princess", says the fairy godmother
he is coming this way on a winged horse
a sword on his waist and on his hand a falcon,
the happy knight who adores you before seeing you,
who comes from afar, victor over Death,
to ignite your lips with his kiss of love.