Ramon Maria del Valle Inclan He was born on a day like today in 1866 in Villanueva de Arosa. He was part of the 98 Generation and his extensive work (he cultivated theater, poetry, the story and the novel) is framed within modernism. Developed and promoted the call grotesque, with Bohemian lights as the most representative and famous title. He also signed titles like Divine Words, Tyrant Flags o Tuesday of Carnival. Esta es una selection fragments to remember.
Ramón María del Valle Inclán - Fragments
Shady garden
I only made out a shadow praying under the lamp in the presbytery: it was my mother, holding an open book in her hands and reading with her head bowed. From time to time, the wind swayed the curtain of a high window. I then saw in the sky, already dark, the face of the moon, pale and supernatural like a goddess who has her altar in the woods and lakes ... I was afraid as I have never been, but I did not want my mother and my sisters thought I was a coward, and I stood motionless in the middle of the chancel, my eyes fixed on the half-open door. The lamplight flickered. At the top a window curtain swayed, and the clouds passed over the moon, and the stars turned on and off like our lives.
Autumn Sonata
I got to his bedroom, which was open. There the darkness was mysterious, perfumed and warm, as if it kept the gallant secret of our dates. What a tragic secret he must keep then! Cautious and prudent, I left Concha's body lying on her bed and I walked away without noise. At the door I was irresolute and sighing. I doubted whether to go back to put the last kiss on those frozen lips: I resisted the temptation. It was like the scruple of a mystic. I feared that there was something sacrilegious in that melancholy that then overwhelmed me. The warm fragrance of her bedroom lit in me, like torture, the voluptuous memory of the senses.
Bohemian lights
Scene Twelfth
Max: Don Latino de Hispalis, grotesque character, I will immortalize you in a novel!
Don Latino: A tragedy, Max.
Max: Our tragedy is not a tragedy.
Don Latino: Well, something will be!
Max: The Esperpento.
Don Latino: Don't twist your mouth, Max.
Max: I'm freezing!
Don Latino: Get up. Let's take a walk.
Max: I can't.
Don Latino: Stop that charade. Let's take a walk.
Max: Give me your breath. Where have you gone, Latino?
Don Latino: I'm by your side.
Max: Since you've turned into an ox, I couldn't recognize you. Give me your breath, illustrious ox of the belenita manger. Muge, Latino! You are the halter, and if you moo, the Apis Ox will come. We will fight him.
Don Latino: You're scaring me. You should stop that joke.
Max: Ultraists are phonies. The grotesque was invented by Goya. The classic heroes have gone for a walk in the Alley of the Cat.
Don Latino: You are completely curd!
Max: The classic heroes reflected in the concave mirrors give the Esperpento. The tragic meaning of Spanish life can only occur with a systematically distorted aesthetic.
Don Latino: Meow! You are catching it!
Max: Spain is a grotesque deformation of European civilization.
Don Latino: Could! I inhibit myself.
Max: The most beautiful images in a concave mirror are absurd.
Don Latino: Agreed. But it amuses me to look at myself in the mirrors on Calle del Gato.
Max: And me. The deformation ceases to be when it is subject to perfect mathematics. My current aesthetic is to transform the classical norms with concave mirror mathematics.
The passenger
My life is broken! In combat
of so many years my breath gives way,
and the proud thought down
the idea of death, which haunts him.
I would like to enter into me, live with me,
to be able to make the cross on my forehead,
and without knowing friend or enemy,
set apart, live devoutly.
Where the green bankruptcy of the height
with herds and musicians shepherds?
Where to enjoy the vision so pure
What makes souls and flowers sisters?
Where to dig the grave in peace
and make mystical bread with my pains?