Madrid's forgotten avant-garde: between essentialism and modernity

Description

Madrid's Forgotten Avant-Garde explores the role played by artists and intellectuals who constructed and disseminated various competing images of national identity that polarized Spanish society prior to the Civil War. The convergence of modern and essentialist discourses and practices, especially in literature and poetry-in what is conventionally called in Spanish letters the Generation of '27-created fissures between competing views of aesthetics and ideology that cut across political affiliation. Author Silvina Schammah Gesser exposes the paradoxes facing Madrid's cultural vanguards, as the.;Front Cover; Title Page; Copyright; Contents; Preface by Series Editor Tim Rees; Acknowledgements; Introduction; I Dangerous Liaisons: Aesthetics, Identities and Politics; II Essentialism/Modernity; III Essentialist and Modern Imageries: An Historical Overview; IV Intellectuals, the Avant-Garde and Intelligentsia; Chapter One: Identity Crisis and Reverence for Modernity; I The Shaping of National Images; II Distressing Modernity: Miguel de Unamuno as Prophet of Doom; III Triggering Modernity: Ortega y Gasset as Disciplined Mentor; Chapter Two: Alternative Images of Modernity.