War & Response: A Spanish-American War Centennial

Many writers of the Generation of 1898 looked to the Spanish landscape as a source for national rejuvenation. Like their colleague Unamuno, Antonio Machado and Azorín (José Martínez Ruiz) turned especially to the countryside of Castile for their literary inspiration.

Martínez Ruiz adopted the name Azorín (a dual reference to both hawkishness and abashedness) in 1902 with the publication of La voluntad. His novels and essays focus on the humble daily activities of life. For Azorín, Castile, with its ruins of past greatness, conveys an eternal and positive spirit--the true Spain; the Spain that will never die.

Azorín’s friend Antonio Machado is critically recognized as one of Spain’s finest poets. He is the poet of the Acampos de Castilla, capturing the sobriety, austerity, and endlessness of the Castilian landscape and transposing it into melancholy and personal verse that evokes a sense of mystery, withdrawal, and solitude.

Azorín, 1873-1967.
Un pueblecito: Riofrío de Avila. Madrid : Imp. de Fortanet, Libertad, 1916.
(SPL) PQ 6503 .B4 Z7 1916

First edition of Azorín’s impressions of a small town in Old Castile, dedicated to his friend, the great poet Antonio Machado. Both men searched for the national spirit in the ancient dwellings and landscapes of their country.

Antonio Machado, 1875-1939.
Nuevas canciones. Madrid: Mundo Latino, 1924.
(SPL) PQ 6623 .A3 N8 1924

First edition. Antonio Machado is considered the foremost poet of the Generation of 1898. This copy belonged to Antonio Solalinde, an eminent scholar and member of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Azorín, 1873-1967.
El paisaje de España visto por los españoles. Madrid: Renacimiento, 1917.
DP 17. M33 1917

José Martínez Ruiz, 'Azorín,' was fascinated by the relation of a region’s landscape and its inhabitants. To explore this topic was to begin the process of rediscovery of the Spanish soul.

Antonio Machado, 1875-1939.
Manuel Machado, 1874-1947.
Juan de Mañara, drama en tres actos, en verso. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe, s.a., 1927.
PQ 6623 .A34 J8 1927

First edition of Juan de Mañara. Antonio Machado and his brother Manuel collaborated on this play about the character who inspired the legend of Don Juan. Every literary movement has produced its own version of this character, one of the three archetypes contributed to world literature by Spanish letters, the others being Don Quixote and the Cid.

Azorín, 1873-1967.
La ruta de Don Quijote. Madrid: Renacimiento, 1916.
PQ 6852 .M3 1916

Fourth printing of Azorín’s La ruta de don Quijote, in which the author attempts to recapture the background of Cervantes’s masterpiece by looking upon the inhabitants of villages traversed by the protagonist as reincarnations of the novel’s fictional characters.

Azorín, 1873-1967.
La voluntad. Barcelona: Imprenta de Henrich, 1902.
(RARE) PQ 6623 .A816 V7 1902

First edition. Azorín’s most poignant novel exhibits his concern for the will-power (voluntad) needed to overcome the abulia listlessness, endemic to the nation, an obstacle to its regeneration.