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The towering figure of Benito PErez GaldOs dominated the realistic novel during the second half of the 19th cent., but Pedro Antonio de AlarcOn, JosE MarIa de Pereda, Armando Palacio ValdEs, Juan Valera y AlcalA Galiano, and Emilia Pardo BazAn also wrote notable fiction. Realism continued to have leading exponents well into the 20th cent., notably Vicente Blasco IbAnez, but at the turn of the century the intellectual and literary life of Spain underwent a deep transformation. With the loss of its colonial empire and the disastrous effects of the Carlist wars, Spain was economically and culturally bankrupt.
At the end of the century the writers of the Generation of '98, stimulated by French and German influences and by RubEn DarIo and the modernismo movement in Spanish America, set out to reevaluate and revitalize the cultural life of Spain. Angel Ganivet, a precursor, had foreshadowed their work in his Idearium espanol. Miguel de Unamuno, as essayist, poet, novelist, and educator, emphasized the quixotic aspect of Spanish values and exerted great influence on Spanish youth. AzorIn (see MartInez Ruiz) created memorable impressionistic sketches. RamOn del Valle InclAn brought a poetic sense of the fantastic and the bizarre to his novels and plays. PIo Baroja y Nessi infused his novels with a fierce independence of spirit that rejected all traditional values and sought to arouse people to action.
The drama, whose only notable exponent in the late 19th cent. had been JosE Echegaray, was revitalized in the early 20th cent. by Jacinto Grau, Gregorio MartInez Sierra, and especially by Jacinto Benavente y MartInez. A major role in the Spanish cultural revival was played by the great educator Francisco Giner de los RIos.
After World War I the intellectual currents set in motion by the Generation of '98 merged with other forces in the European avant-garde to create a mainstream that fertilized Spanish cultural life until the outbreak of the civil war. Criticism, which had flourished at the turn of the century under the erudite Marcelino MenEndez y Pelayo, reached new heights in the works of the distinguished medievalist RamOn MenEndez Pidal. The humorist RamOn GOmez de la Serna wrote his inimitable greguerIas.
It was in poetry, however, that Spanish literature produced its greatest achievements. The lyrics of Antonio Machado and of the great Juan RamOn JimEnez are among the finest in the language. JosE Moreno Villa, Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre, Luis Cernuda, Jorge GuillEn, DAmaso Alonso, and many others formed a brilliant constellation of poets, but the most engaging figure was that of the poet and dramatist Federico GarcIa Lorca.
Parallel to these developments in poetry was the work of one of Spain's most gifted essayists : JosE Ortega y Gasset. The novelist RamOn PErez de Ayala used his novels as a forum for intellectual discussion, whereas Gabriel MirO Ferrer wrote novels that can be considered lyric prose poems, and BenjamIn JarnEs produced surrealist novels. The novels of RamOn Sender marked a return to social criticism.
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