The term modernismo is generally applied to the writings of a generation of artists from Latin America and Spain who initiated a revolution in literature in the 1880s in the Americas and the late 1890s in Spain. The literary histories of Spanish modernismo written in the period 1936–1955 by Ángel Valbuena Prat, Guillermo Díaz-Plaja, and others, and subsequent accounts based on them have presented an overview which, in the light of recent research, is seriously flawed. First, they contend that the movement began in the Americas with the work of Rubén Darío (1867–1916) and was taken to Spain on his second visit to the peninsula in 1899. Second, modernismo is perceived as an essentially aesthetic movement, drawing its inspiration eclectically from European, largely French, literary models. Third, the movement was a homogeneous one, emerging in the late 1890s and largely abandoned by major writers before 1910. Lastly, it was devoid of serious preoccupations and, by the 1950s, held little relevance.

These accounts, with a concentration on aesthetic issues and literary origins, have failed to treat the movement seriously and recognize its complexity. In part this is because, at a very early stage, the modernistas explored aspects of experience which seemed, to the conservative establishment, to be in some way subversive. Their affirmation that art could supply meaning and spiritual beauty which a contemporary mercantile and philistine society lacked, their rejection of an art based on the civic and national ideals of a pragmatic bourgeoisie, and their disgust with a discredited political and social system led to what Manuel Machado (1874–1947), in 1913, called “una guerra literaria” (“a literary war”).