Azorin

José Martínez Ruiz, better known by his pseudonym Azorín (Monóvar, June 8, 1873 - Madrid, March 2, 1967), was a Spanish writer belonging to to the generation of '98, which cultivated various literary genres: the novel, the essay, the journalistic chronicle and literary criticism and, to a lesser extent, the theater. As a politician, he held the seat of deputy to Cortes on five occasions during the Restoration.

Biography

Born in the Alicante town of Monóvar on June 8, 1873, his full name at birth was José Augusto Trinidad Martínez Ruiz. His father was from Yecla (Murcia) and was a member of the Liberal-Conservative Party (he became mayor, deputy and follower of Francisco Romero Robledo). He worked as a lawyer in Monóvar and owned an important estate. His mother was born in Petrel. It was a traditional bourgeois and wealthy family. Azorín was the eldest of nine siblings. He studied internal high school for eight years at the Escolapios de Yecla school, a stage that he reflects in his first two novels, with strong autobiographical content. From 1888 to 1896 he studied law in Valencia, where he became interested in Krausism and anarchism and gave himself over to feverish literary and political readings. They begin the journalistic first steps of him. He uses pseudonyms such as Fray José, in La Educación Católica by Petrer, and Juan de Lis, in El Defensor de Yecla . He also writes in El Eco de Monóvar , El Mercantil Valenciano and even in El Pueblo , the newspaper of Vicente Blasco Ibáñez. He almost always criticizes plays with a strong social content (he praises the works of Ángel Guimerá and Benito Pérez Galdós or the Juan José by Joaquín Dicenta) and already reflects his anarchist leanings. He translates the drama The Intruder by Maurice Maeterlinck, the French A. Hamon's lecture On the Homeland or Prisons by Kropotkin. In 1895 he published two essays, Literary Anarchists and Social Notes , in which he presented the main anarchist theories to the public.

Photographed around 1914 by Campúa.

He took the exam in Valencia, but he was more a student than a scholar and more attentive to social gatherings, journalism, theater and literature than to the law. Arriving in Madrid on November 25, 1896 to continue his studies, he began in the midst of great privations in republican journalism as in El País (1896), from where he was fired, or in El Progreso (1897), Alejandro Lerroux's newspaper, receiving only the support of Leopoldo Alas, Clarín, in one of his Paliques, where he worked as a critic, under the pseudonyms of Cándido —in honor to Voltaire-, Ahriman -the Persian god of destruction-, Charivari and Este, among others.

Little by little, his name began to appear more and more in magazines and newspapers such as Revista Nueva, Juventud (signing with Pío Baroja and Ramiro de Maeztu as a group of the Three), Young Art, El Globo, Alma Española, España, El Imparcial and ABC. At the same time he is publishing pamphlets and books. He wrote a trilogy of autobiographical novels from which he drew his final pseudonym, "Azorín", with which he began to sign in 1904: La voluntad (1902), Antonio Azorín and The confessions of a little philosopher.

From 1905 Azorín's thought and literature were already established in conservatism. He begins to collaborate at ABC where he actively participated in political life. Antonio Maura and especially the minister Juan de la Cierva y Peñafiel became his greatest supporters.

Tovar cartoon published in The Liberal on 11 November 1908, in which Azorín and Maura appear.

Between 1907 and 1919 he was deputy cunero five times and two brief seasons (in 1917 and 1919) undersecretary of Public Instruction. Critical in his early years of the political system of the Restoration, which he considered corrupt, he eventually became part of it. He already had a long career in the Madrid press when he joined La Vanguardia as a literary critic. Thanks to the efforts of director Miquel dels Sants Oliver, Azorín published nearly two hundred articles in this newspaper between 1914 and 1917. It is not surprising that a conspicuous representative of Castilian culture published in the pages of a Barcelona newspaper such as La Vanguardia, since Barcelona was the capital where, according to scholars, the generation of '98 promoted and became known.

He traveled tirelessly through Spain and delved into the reading of the Golden Age classics. Primo de Rivera's military directory cooled the public activity of Azorín, who refused to accept political posts from the dictator. In 1924 he was elected a member of the Royal Spanish Academy.

When the Civil War broke out, he fled Madrid from the Popular Front and with his wife, Julia Guinda Urzanqui (1876-1974), took refuge in France. Years later, in 1966, as a result of his stay in Paris during the war, he wrote the essay Paris , with his impressions of the French capital. After the war was over, he was able to return to Spain thanks to the help he received for that purpose from the then Minister of the Interior, Ramón Serrano Suñer, to whom years later (1955) Azorín dedicated his work El pasado (New Library, Madrid). In 1946 he was awarded the grand cross of the Order of Alfonso X el Sabio.

In his later years he was passionate and a regular moviegoer. For his columnist activity on the subject, the Círculo de Escritores Cinematográficos awarded him the Medal for the best literary work in 1950. On July 5, 1963, he was named adoptive son of Alicante. He died at his home at number 21 Calle de Zorrilla, in Madrid, on March 2, 1967.

Work

Portrait of Azorín with Ávila from the background by Juan de Echevarría (1922, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía).

For a few decades, literary criticism has inscribed his work, like that of the rest of the generation of '98 –to which he belongs–, within the great literary renewal of European modernism. This movement should not be confused with Hispanic modernism, a literary current initiated by the Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío. The renewal sought by the authors of 1998 is so obvious that, for many scholars, 1902 becomes a fundamental year for Spanish and European literature, since four deeply innovative novels were published in it and would have a decisive influence in the years to come. to come. In that year, Baroja published Camino de perfección; Unamuno, Love and Pedagogy; José Martínez Ruiz (Azorín), The will; Valle-Inclán, Autumn Sonata. The first three novels were published by the Barcelona publisher Henrich y Cía, as part of the Library of Novelists of the XX Century collection.

His literary production is basically divided into two major sections: essay and novel. He also wrote some unsuccessful experimental plays.

Azorín's literary production also has great stylistic value. His very peculiar way of writing is characterized by the use of a short sentence and simple syntax, by the detail of a traditional vocabulary and by the series of two or three adjectives joined by a comma. Although there is some debate among critics, the characterization of that style as Symbolist Impressionism is gaining ground, rooted in French-language Symbolist literature, both French (Joris-Karl Huysmans, Baudelaire) and Belgian Symbolism (Rodenbach, Maeterlinck). Among his most innovative literary techniques is the use, in the manner of Virginia Woolf, of characters who live at the same time in various periods of history, such as Don Juan or Inés, fusing both myth and eternal return.

Essay

As an essayist, he devoted special attention to two themes: the Spanish landscape and the impressionist reinterpretation of classic literary works.

In the essays dedicated to the Spanish situation, the same evolutionary process that marked the entire generation of '98 can be observed: if in his early works he examines specific aspects of Spanish reality and analyzes the serious problems of Spain, in Castilla (1912) aims to deepen the Spanish cultural tradition (reflections that arise spontaneously from small observations of the landscape), as well as incorporating a sense of cyclical time inspired by Nietzsche.

Among Azorín's literary essays, Don Quixote Route (1905), Classics and Moderns (1913), Literary Values (1914) and Aside from the classics (1915). In them, his intention is not to make a detailed study of the texts, but to arouse curiosity and interest by offering an impressionistic reading of them that highlights only the most significant elements of them for the writer's personality. Therefore, he limits himself to expressing his impressions and personal reflections on Spanish literature. He also highlights The tragic Andalusia . It is an essay added to the work of Los pueblos (edition in 1914). Azorín will go to Andalusia and tour the Seville area. At first he will send chronicles to El Imparcial and the Government will feel annoyed, for which reason the director of the newspaper will ask him not to send more. He will still publish an interview that will cost him expulsion from the newspaper and will lead him to work at ABC . Tragic Andalusia was from 1904 to 1905, before Los pueblos and later added.

Novel

Caricatured Azorín by Bagaria (Spain, 1915)

The sixteen novels by Azorín could be classified as lyrical novels, a literary subgenre typical of modernity –although rooted in German Romanticism and French symbolism–, widely cultivated by some of the authors of the generation of '98 and from 14. The lyrical novel supposes a fusion between the novelistic and poetic genres. They are novels that represent a strong break with the novelistic canon of nineteenth-century literature. According to some authors (such as Martínez Cachero), his novels could be divided into four stages, due to the evolution of his style, although they maintain a certain unity between them:

• The first stage shows predominance of the autobiographical elements and impressions aroused by the landscape. The protagonist is Antonio Azorín (of which he will take his pseudonym), a fictional character that becomes the consciousness of his creator. These novels are a pretext to develop the author's vital and cultural experiences. They belong to her. Diary of a sick person (1901), The will (1902), Antonio Azorín (1903) and The confessions of a little philosopher (1904). These last three are considered by José María Martínez Cachero (in his work The novels of Azorín) as the cycle of Antonio Azorín, since in the three his protagonist will be that fiction character. The author will then adopt this pseudonimo in 1904, following the publication of the The confessions.
• In the second stage, Azorín abandons the autobiographical elements, although he continues to reflect his own concerns in the characters: fatality, obsession for time, destiny, etc. These are novels of this period The licensed window (vised by Azorín), of 1915 — also known as Thomas Rueda— and, especially, Don Juan (1922) and Doña Inés (1925), very personal literary recreations of the literary myth of Don Juan. Both novels are considered by Martínez Cachero as the tops of the Azorinian novelist production.
• To the third stage belong Félix Vargas (1928), Superrealism (1929) and People (1930). These are highly experimental novels. In fact, Azorín, who had more than fifty years in the publication of these works, was considered by the group of young avant-garde writers as one of his own, by the perfect adequacy of these works to the rupturistic vision of the avant-garde. In fact, Vargas Llosa considers People as one of the best novels of the Levantine writer.
• In the fourth stage, after a period of relative silence deeply marked by the civil contest, Azorín returns to the narrative with The writer (1942), The Sick (1943), Capricho (1943), The island without aurora (1944), the pink novel Maria Fontán (1944) and, his latest novel, Salvadoran of Olbena (1944).

Theater

Retreated by Sorolla (1917)

Azorín always had a great fondness for the theater; however, his works did not enjoy popular favor. From his pen would come Old Spain (1926), Brandy, much brandy (1927), Commedia dell'arte (1927) and the trilogy The invisible, linked to the aesthetics of expressionism, of which The little spider in the mirror, The reaper and Doctor Death, by 3 to 5, considered by some critics to be his best dramatic production.

Francisco Ruiz Ramón summarizes the Azorinian theatrical proposal as follows:

1. Azorín points out the importance and creative freedom of the stage director and the actors.
2. It draws attention to the new relationships between film technology and theatrical technique.
3. It emphasizes the appearance of the world of the subconscious at the scene.
4. The new reality of theatrical work, according to the needs of the new society and with the rhythm of modern life, must be "fast, tenuous and contradictory".
5. Receipts should be deleted or minimized.
6. It is the inner world, the world of ideas and the problems of spirit and imagination, who must supply his materials to the playwright.

Azorín's intention is to free Spanish theater from all provincialism and elevate it to the category of European theater. But the Spanish mentality was not prepared to accept these new dramatic proposals. Hence, the Azorinian theater, like that of Ramón María del Valle-Inclán and Miguel de Unamuno, had rather little success.

In 2012, professors Antonio Díez Mediavilla (University of Alicante) and Mariano de Paco (University of Murcia) revealed the missing link in Azorín's theatrical production. The specialists recovered the text and the original title of the play Ifach.

List of works

Elaborated mainly from the list compiled by E. Inman Fox, Azorín: guide to the complete work (Madrid, Castalia, 1992).

It should be noted that Azorín is the main pseudonym of José Martínez Ruiz, who also published under his own name, as well as under the pseudonyms Cándido or Ahrimán. For this reason, in the case of those books that he did not sign as Azorín, it has been clarified under which rubric they were published.

Azorín in the cinema

• Badaezpada: The affectionate neighbor (2007), Pello Varela director, and Txema Blasco and Rafa Martín actors.