El modernismo en España: algunos conceptos críticos

Abstract

This article offers a new understanding of Spanish «Modernismo» which places this concept in that wider trend of Western culture at the beginning of the 20^th century generally known as «Modernism» in the anglo-saxon world. Beauty is the central concept in this context; it includes characteristics inherited from the French parnasianism and symbolism and, at the same time, it involves a transcendental dimension which derives from the philosophical and theological Modernism, which is contemporary to the literary one. From this theoretical perspective, I aim to analyze a number of critical approaches derived from the concept of beauty, such as metafiction, identity, time or form. They are described briefly through the words of well-known Modernists such as Unamuno, Azorín, Baroja, Valle-Inclán or Machado.