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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Although Azorín is characteristically self-renovating and experimental, his boldest innovations occurred mainly from 1926 to 1931. This period has been variously classified as his second or third, but for clarity I shall call it his experimental period. It includes the bulk of his plays (from Judit and Old Spain!, 1926, to Cervantes, o La casa encantada, 1931), three novels (El caballero inactual [title changed from Félix Vargas], 1928, El libro de Levante [first called Superrealismo], 1929, and Pueblo, 1930), a collection of short stories, Blanco en azul (1929), a book of criticism, Andando y pensando (1929), and many stories and essays written contemporaneously with these works, though published later.
1 For a more detailed treatment of several problems related to this article, especially the introductory material and Azorin's style, see my book, The Structure and Style of Azorín's El caballero inactual (Athens: Univ. of Georgia Press, 1963).
2 Manuel Granell Mufiiz, Estética de “Azorín” (Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 1949), pp. 104–107.
3 José María Martínez Cachero, Las novelas de Azorín (Madrid: Insula, 1960), pp. 53–60. I agree with Martínez Cachero's classification.
4 Granell, pp. 140–141. Granell's descriptive classification is conditionally approved by Marguerite C. Rand in Castilla en Azorín (Madrid: Revista de Occidente, 1956), pp. 52–55.
5 Granell, p. 204.
6 As Sheldon Cheney did in his Expressionism in Art (New York: Liveright Publishing Corp., 1934), pp. 29–43 and 69–95.
7 But Walter H. Sokel (unjustifiably, I think) claims that expressionism embraces cubism, surrealism, and expressionism proper. See his otherwise useful book, The Writer in Extremis: Expressionism in Twentieth-Century German Literature (Stanford: Stanford Univ. Press, 1959), especially pp. 29–44.
8 See C. E. W. L. Dahlström, Strindberg's Dramatic Expressionism (Ann Arbor: Univ. of Michigan Publications, 1930), especially pp. 1–82. Cf. also Joseph T. Shipley, “Expressionism,” in Dictionary of World Literature (New York: Philosophical Library, 1943).
9 But this is not true of other protagonists of the period, nor does it give the complete explanation of Félix Vargas, whose method and personality are much more complicated.
10 Good examples of this practice are the letter, lost keys, and signs in El caballero inactual. See Azorín. Obras completas, ed. Angel Cruz Rueda, 9 vols. (Madrid: Aguilar, 1947–54), v, 35–38, 42, 67, 101, and 109. Subsequent references to Azorín's works will be given in the text by volume and page numbers. The italics in quotations from Azorín will be my own.
11 Enrique Díez-Canedo, “The Contemporary Spanish Theater,” in The Theater in a Changing Europe, ed. Thomas H. Dickinson (New York: Holt, 1937), p. 311.
12 Gonzalo Torrente Ballester, Panorama de la literatura española contemporánea (Madrid: Ediciones Guadarrama, S. L., 1956), p. 203. The italics are Torrente Ballester's.
13 Eugenio G. de Nora, La novela española contemporánea (1898–1927), i (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1958), 243.
14 Martínez Cachero, p. 210.
15 Rand, pp. 64–65.
16 Alma C. Allen, “Surrealism and the Prose Fiction of José Martínez Ruiz (Azorín)” (unpub. diss., Boston Univ., 1960), pp. 229–295.
17 Ibid., pp. 197–228.
18 “Azorín o la evasión pura,” in Debales sobre el teatro español contemporáneo (Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canarias: Ediciones Goya, 1953), pp. 161–181. For Pérez Minik the dominant note in Azorín's theater is evasionism: a withdrawal from everyday reality and the ensuing quest for an air of unreality founded mainly on the treatment of time and space and the use of lo maravilloso. He distinguishes Azorín's surrealism from European surrealism as follows: “La separación más radical que pudiera establecerse entre el surrealismo de Azorín y los otros surrealismos europeos descansa en que solo nuestro autor ha poseído una clásica mente clara de occidental, mientras los otros únicamente han dispuesto de una mente turbia barroca, determinada por una dinámica vital arrolladura. Lo maravilloso ingenuo frente a lo maravilloso demoníaco, para expresarlo de algún modo” (p. 167).
19 “El teatro de Azorín,” preliminary study in Azorín's Obras completas, II (Teatro, n) (Madrid: Renacimiento, 1931), 9–36. Díaz Pía ja states that Azorín's surrealism does not follow Breton's definition and is basically “superación de la realidad” (21). He finds indications of this tendency in Azorín's earlier works too.
20 Lawrence A. La John, Azorín and the Spanish Stage (New York: Hispanic Institute, 1961), p. 198.
21 In “El superrealismo es un hecho evidente” (1927), Azorín interprets surrealism as being predominantly unreality based, paradoxically, on a more solid and extensive reality, including the reality of dreams and the awareness of the changeability and contradictoriness of life (ix, 101–105). In another comment, he says: “El teatro de ahora es super-realista; desdeña la copia minuciosa, auténtica, prolija, de la realidad. Se desenvuelve en un ambiente de fantasía, de ensueño, de irrealidad” (iv, 923).
22 LaJohn, p. 89.
23 This particular aspect is especially prevalent in Azorín's prologues to his plays and in El caballero inactual and El libro de Levante.
24 Azorín knew works like Jean-Victor Pellerin's Têtes de
rechange and Intimité (cf. ix, 166–170), and Simon Gantillon's Maya, which he translated and for which he wrote an “Autocrítica” (ix, 139–140).
25 Shipley, “Surrealism.” Cf. also the five fairly constant beliefs of surrealism as drawn up by Wallace Fowlie in Age of Surrealism (New York: Swallow Press and William Morrow & Co., Inc., 1950), pp. 106–109. For other treatments of surrealism, consult Jacques Hardré, “Present State of Studies on Literary Surrealism,” Yearbook of Comparative and General Literature, ix (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1960), 43–66.
26 Anna Balakian, Surrealism: The Road to the Absolute (New York: Noonday Press, 1950), p. 120 (from Ch. vii, “the surrealist image,” pp. 112–141).
27 Ibid., p. 135.
28 Ibid., p. 154 (from Ch. viii, “the surrealist object,” pp. 142–161).
29 Thus one finds frequent contact with popular, folkloric poetry, or the influence of Góngora and other “classical” (Golden Age) poets in the new Spanish poetry of the nine-teen-twenties and thirties. Cf. Manuel Durán Gili: “... el surrealismo no tiene en España la fuerza que en Francia, por ejemplo carece de estructura teórica. Se mantiene a la defensiva, bajo el alud de influencias contrarias. Y cuando consigue imponerse, raras veces lo hace en la forma pura de la escritura automática.
Por eso el superrealismo en España raras veces se da puro. . . . Es, más que un movimiento autónomo, una etapa en la evolución de los poetas ...“ (El superrealismo en la poesía española contemporánea, Mexico: Facultad de Filosofía y Letras de la Universidad ... de México, 1950, p. 39). Though sketchy, this is probably the best treatment of Spanish surrealism to date. I have only recently acquired Gloria Videla's book, El ultraísmo. Estudios sobre movimientos poéticos de vanguardia en España (Madrid: Editorial Gredos, 1963).
30 See Francisco Marco Merenciano, Fronteras de la locura: Tres personajes de Azorín vistos por un psiquiatra (Valencia: Ediciones Metis, S. L., 1947).
31 Lajohn, p. 123.
32 In reality the influence of Rilke's Malte is more evident in El caballero inaclual, whose protagonist is modeled partly on Malte and partly on Rilke himself.
33 See Frederick S. Stimson, “Lo invisible: Azorín's Debt to Maeterlinck,” Hispanic Review, xxvi (Jan. 1958), 64–70. One essential difference between the two, however, is that Azorín avoids the melodramatic, gloomy settings used by Maeterlinck.
34 In this and in other aspects Angelita is like Laura of Brandy, mucho brandy, but she is different in her haste to reach her goal, her obsession with time, and her complete, not partial renunciation.
35 Seemingly absurd, surrealist behavior in Azorín, as in Casona, is in fact normal behavior in a situation that for one reason or another is abnormal, or made to appear abnormal. Normality and abnormality, then, are relative concepts for both.
36 Guillermo Díaz-Plaja says that while this is not a perfect example of desdoblamiento, the role of Angelita's subconscious is apparent (cited by La John, p. 173, n. 209).
37 The same year Azorín's most Franciscan work, Pueblo (Novela de los que trabajan y sufren), was published. Similar elements of renunciation and charity, of Franciscanism, are found in other Azorinian works in or just prior to this period, including Don Juan, Doña Inés, El caballero inactual, El libro de Levante, and in several short stories. See Martínez Cachero on this, esp. pp. 181–185 and 235–239.
38 On this term, and a brief discussion of its application to Azorín, see Leon Livingstone, “Interior Duplication and the Problem of Form in the Modern Spanish Novel,” PMLA, lxxiii (Sept. 1958), 393–406. Cervantes, o La casa encantada, like several other works of Azorín, is a good example of this typically Spanish process.
39 I quote the title to make a minor but useful point: the duality of the title and the twin obsessions of Victor are more evident with this punctuation than Lajohn's, Cervantes o la casa encantada.
40 See iv, 1085 (Sanchesque phrases used by Postín), 1089–91 (this situation, in which Isabel appears, dressed as a farm girl, recalls Ch. x, Part ii, of Don Quijote, where a peasant girl is interpreted to be Dulcinea), 1097–1102 (Postin's fear and Victor's valor), Act iii, with its obvious parallels, and 1135, where Victor uses two faintly Quixotic phrases (“el sin par periodista” and “mi primera salida”).
41 The style in Azorín's plays has not been fully studied yet. Lajohn's awareness of the discrepancies between Azorín's style and his so-called surrealism is revealed in contradictory remarks like the following: “Angelita must be considered as one of the author's surrealist plays in the use of ‘lo maravilloso,‘ and the attention to the subconscious. . . . This play is another example of Azorín's impressionistic theatre. Indeed, everything is in the rapid, suggestive dialogue, ...” (pp. 173–174).
42 See Allen, “Objective Chance,” pp. 203–213. For her treatment of Azorín's stories in other aspects, see also pp. 180 ff. She recognizes that objective chance is not very common in Azorín, saying: “... Azorín has made occasional use of the objective chance as a surrealist method. For the most part, however, Azorín uses, not chance or coincidence, but the idea of fate” (p. 204). Her examples are not very convincing.
43 Cf. Allen, “The Marvelous Element,” pp. 190–196. Of course, the mere use of fantastic elements does not constitute surrealism, since they often appear in stories and tales of previous times.
44 The latter story presents the interesting, characteristically Azorinian idea of imagining “fourth” acts for famous Spanish plays. The play involved is La vida es sueño, and an improvised gesture of the actor, based on his intimate contact with the audience, is the actor's art. Early examples of this procedure are seen in Tomás Rueda (1915), and “Las nubes,” of Castilla (1912). The latter is also a clear precedent of the use of “eternal return.”
45 Azorín's indebtedness to Rilke is treated in my book on El caballero inactual. See above, n. 1.
46 The six previously mentioned short stories of which Félix Vargas is the protagonist form an important “epilogue” to El caballero inactual.
47 For a full discussion of this novel, see Martínez Cachero, pp.224–233.
48 The subject of the monk's book is stated before: “La razón, aunque no pueda comprender la naturaleza íntima de los misterios, los ilumina admirablemente, poniendo de relieve las semejanzas con las cosas del orden natural, y mostrando sus aspectos accesibles, o buscando los lazos que los unen y la armonía que reina entre ellos” (v, 428). This is also a theme in this novel and, with the concluding chapters, can be related to the earlier discussion of angels and the role of inspiration in the creative process.
49 The final theme of infallibility is forecast by the recurrent sign Infalibilidad. See esp. v, 381.
50 Martínez Cachero, p. 229, n. 48. He mentions Chs. xxviii and xxxi as exceptions. However, in both these chapters, as in many other passages, the basic technique is simultanéisme or cinematic montage, which is not limited to surrealism.
51 Ibid., p. 234.
52 Ibid., p. 238.
53 An unexplained narrative “yo” also occurs in the part on the dog: “Estábamos los dos, el perrito cojo y yo, tendidos en la hierba; . . .” (v, 581).
54 Cf. Wylie Sypher, Rococo to Cubism in Art and Literature (New York: Random House, 1960), p. 276: “Eisenstein notes that while cubism was flourishing in France, montage was thought to be ‘everything’ in the cinema. In his words, montage is ‘a complex composed of film strips containing photographic images’ so arranged that two or more shots are seen together, or nearly together, in a compound image. Thus ‘the polyphonic structure achieves its total effect through the composite sensation of all the pieces as a whole.‘ Based not on sequence but counterpoint, montage compels us to see things in multiple perspective, telescoping time and fixing representation in a spliced image like the flattened cubist perspective.” Sypher goes on to treat in detail montage, considered by him the characteristic technique of the main stream of twentieth-century art and literature, to which he gives the name of cubism as the dominant epoch style prior to 1939.
55 Quite similar is the “tyranny” exerted on Virginia Puig by a book in the story, “La infidente de sí misma” (v, 236–240).
56 Martínez Cachero, pp. 220–221 and 239–240.
57 Shipley, “Expressionism.”
58 Helmut Hatzfeld, Trends & Styles in Twentieth Century French Literature (Washington, D. C.: Catholic Univ. of America Press, 1957), p. 225.
59 A. A. Mendilow uses this term to describe the basically impressionistic style of the writers of the “time school of fiction,” with whom Azorín has many affinities. Time and the Novel (London, New York: Peter Nevill Ltd., 1952), p. 216.
60 Stephen Ullmann, Style in the French Novel (Cambridge: University Press, 1957), p. 131.
61 Many examples may be found in the poets of the “Generation of 1927” and in the selections published by Guillermo Díaz-Plaja in El poema en prosa en España (Barcelona: Editorial Gustavo Gili, S. A., 1956).
62 Martínez Cachero calls this period the “cima de la maestría” in Azorín's work.
63 For another example of this fairly common device, see the lyrical “Frente al faro, frente al mar” (v, 60). See also v, 37, 41, 43, 47, and 60. Trains and train whistles, favorite motifs in Azorín, are often used.
64 As cited by Guillermo de Torre: “'Es preciso—comenzaba—destruir la sintaxis, disponiendo los sustantivos al azar de su nacimiento.' Y agregaba otras curiosas cláusulas: el empleo del verbo en infinitivo 'para que se adapte elásticamente al sustantivo y dé el sentido continuo de la vida y de la intuición que le percibe'.” Literaturas europeas de vanguardia (Madrid: Caro Raggio, 1925), p. 247.
65 Among many worthwhile studies of impressionism, see esp. Ullmann, op. cit., and Charles Bally, Elise Richter, Amado Alonso, Raimundo Lida, El impresionismo en el lenguaje, traducción y notas de A. Alonso y R. Lida, 3d ed. (Buenos Aires: Instituto de Filología, 1956).
66 Such sentences have been considered characteristic of impressionism. On similar matters in Azorín, see Heinrich Denner, Das Stilproblem bei Azorín (Zürich: Rascher & Cie., 1931), esp. Chs. ii, iii, and x. On the Goncourts see Pierre Sabatier, L'Esthétique des Goncourt (Paris: Hachette, 1920), p. 423.
67 Those of El caballero inactual are discussed in my book on this work. The results of this and other investigations I have made of Azorín's imagery show, at least to my satisfaction, that it is not surrealistic.
68 On this point and Azorín's relations with surrealism, cf. Leon Livingstone, “The Pursuit of Form in the Novels of Azorín,” PMLA, lxxvii (March 1962), 124–125, n. 42. It was not until this study was near completion that I saw Livingstone's article, which is the first chapter of a promised book on Azorín.
69 Care must be taken lest inadequately substantiated interpretations, such as those made by Allen and LaJohn, however worthwhile in some aspects, be used as norms for future studies. The same can be said of Rodolfo Cardona's Ramón: A Study of Gómez de la Serna and His Works (New York: Eliseo Torres & Sons, 1957). In Ch. ii, “Ramón and the ‘Isms‘” (pp. 9–26), Cardona treats Gómez de la Serna's El incongruente, ¡Rebeca!, and El hombre perdido as surrealist novels. Yet his treatment of these novels and his background material on the “isms” are so limited that I, for one, am not convinced that Gómez de la Serna's “surrealism” is much more than whimsy, caprice, humor, and imagery of the kind found in the greguerías.