Transgressionen der Moderne

Few narrative processes have been researched as thoroughly in recent years as metalepsis. However, the abundance of theoretical descriptive models, which can hardly be surveyed any more, is countered in practice by only a small number of analysed primary texts. The study therefore develops a limited model of metaleptic narration and applies it to texts from the Spanish 1920s to 1940s that have hardly been explored so far: Authors such as Mauricio Bacarisse, Ramón Gómez de la Serna, Mario Verdaguer, Benjamín Jarnés and the late Azorín each use metalepsis in very different ways. Even more than Unamuno, they take their cue from Pirandello, whose theory of drama had an innovative effect on the poetics of the novel in Spain.

The wealth of variants ranges from epigonal tendencies to a completely new pseudo-performative writing. In this sense, the study diversifies the image of a Spanish (late) modernism and, in the overall view, stimulates a revision of established literary-historical paradigms.