Resurrection and recreation of Daphnis and Chloe in the Spanish Silver Age (1868-1936): moral, philology and literary space

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to search for the impact that the Greek novel Daphnis and Chloe had in several authors of the Silver Age of the Spanish culture, on the basis of a chronological compilation and critical interpretation of the data. In this way, this paper will try to demonstrate that, from the time of Juan Valera’s translation onwards, some writers of the late 19th century resort to mentioning the characters of Longus’ novel as a mere aesthetic resource imposed by fashion, while others look at its plot to find the inventio of the subject of their novels. Also, this paper will try to demostrate that certain authors, belonging already to the Generations of ’98 and ’27 and with more or less knowledge of Greek, rediscover Las Pastorales and use them to polarize their opinions about sexuality, in the framework of the so-called lyric novel. Finally, the paper will highlight the resort to Daphnis and Chloe made by certain writers of the Generation of ’27, either with a symbolic function, either to deconstruct a classic by introducing it into the aesthetics of modernity.