The Generation of '98

In 1898 Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines, and a handful of writers turned that defeat into a question: what is Spain. They set out to walk in Castile, described the villages of the plateau, reread Don Quixote, and replaced rhetoric with sober prose. Unamuno pushed the novel to the point where the character reproaches the author for wanting to kill him; Machado drew from solitude a low, bare poetry; Baroja invented the disenchanted novel of action. The group lastingly fixed the literary image of Castile.

works 5

• NovelThe Tree of KnowledgeEl árbol de la cienciaPío Baroja · 1911A medical student in Madrid looks to science and philosophy for a reason to live.Literature
• PoetryFields of CastileCampos de CastillaAntonio Machado · 1912Poems on the lands and the men of Castile, written in Soria at the beginning of the twentieth century.LiteraturePublic domain
• EssayCastillaAzorín · 1912not translated into EnglishFourteen Castilian scenes, stations, inns, cathedral and clouds, in which only time passes.Literature
• NovelFogNieblaMiguel de Unamuno · 1914Augusto Pérez, in love and at a loss, goes to ask advice from the writer who invented him.Literature
• TheatreBohemian LightsLuces de bohemiaRamón María del Valle-Inclán · 1920A blind and ruined poet wanders for a night through the wretched Madrid of the 1920s.LiteraturePublic domain