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La quimera of Emilia Pardo Bazan: The Pre-Raphaelite Factor in the Regeneration of a Decadent Dandy

1987; American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese; Volume: 70; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/342517

2153-6414

Daniel S. Whitaker,

Spanish Literature and Culture Studies

major description of the effects of a decaying society appears in Los Pazos de Ulloa (1886), in which the collapse of an aristocratic family is well documented. Nevertheless, the most thorough commentary on the decadentfin de sidcle society is found in La quimera (1905). This novel, which Walter T. Pattison classifies as the finest work of Dofia Emilia, describes the life of the Galician artist Silvio Lago as he advances in the social world of Madrid before dying of tuberculosis (85). Within the span of a few months, the painter is subjected to the forces which Dofia Emilia considers to be decadent: the abnormal desire for fame and glory, the power of money, the lack of traditional values of society. Towards the end of his life, Silvio begins to learn an alternative to these decadent influences in a strong faith in God, patience, and the artistic tenets of the English Pre-Raphaelite painters. regeneration of Silvio Lago, in other words, is both aesthetic and moral. goal of this paper is to demonstrate how Silvio escapes from a decadent life-style, and, through the influence of the Pre-Raphaelites, experiences a spiritual rebirth in the last pages of La quimera. concept of decadence has meant different things to different people in western European history. Before the nineteenth century, the word decadent was normally applied to civilizations which had disappeared, such as Rome or Byzantium. By the nineteenth century, the word was also utilized to refer to the individuals within a society and to an art form which flourished at the turn of the century. most common meaning of decadence was one of decline, of decay, a feeling, at once oppressive and exalting, of being the last of a series, as Richard Gilman has said (14). Therefore, the closest meaning of decadence seemed in the nineteenth century to be one of falling away from previous accepted political, social, and moral norms. But the other side of the coin of decadence was the thirst for something new: The craving for novelty and notoriety and a feverish desire to be abreast of the times, Linda Dowling comments, may be reckoned among the first fruits of decadentism (449). Decadence as a movement, 1850-1900, appeared as a reaction against the materialism and rationalism of the nineteenth century and was sometimes a cover term for the fin de sidcle currents of naturalism, parnassianism, symbolism, Latin-American and Spanish modernismo, romanticism, spiritualism, and other literary trends. In the novel, decadent protagonists lived the life of a sensual aesthete, following the chief decadent novel of J. K. Huysmans, A Rebours (1884), and its hero, Des Esseintes. decadent protagonist often took on a collective and mythical meaning and became a representative of society and civilization. most significant characteristics of a decadent novel, according to Suzanne Nalbantian, were the feeling of diffusiveness and restlessness in the text; a world in which firm human relationships were often absent; a protagonist who was overly reflective; and an omniscient narrator who was like a diagnostician documenting a sick-