The second text that will be studied is the Sonata de Otoño, a masterpiece and a truly regenerational novel.
Sonata de Otoño sees a complete evasion of the nineteenth century novel, escaping realism and embracing modernism. The sonata de Otoño forms one of the four seasons in the life of the marqués de Bradomín. There are three other texts that complete the set. Sonata de Primavera, Sonata de Estío, Sonata de Invierno (1902-1905). At first the novels did not receive a good reception from contemporary critics, however this is true of the great majority of regenerational novels. As Ortega y Gasset writes in The Dehumanisation of Art:It may be said that every newcomer among styles passes through a stage of quarantine.
[...] A new style takes some time in winning popularity; it is not popular, but is not unpopular either.1The Sonata de Otoño deals with a wide range of contemporary issues that encapsulate the transition of literature and society from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.
The novel touches upon the interests and concerns of the 'Generation' and on a wider scale, the issue of European cultural deterioration. The influence of modernism is also apparent; the novel sees the use of the aesthetic model, symbolism, the exotic and the luxurious, the mysterious. Moreover, the application of the aesthetic tinged with the macabre, illness, pain, death, the profane and sacrilegious, sadomasochism and satanism. The Sonata de Otoño was influenced greatly by aesthetic novels such as: Huysman's Á Rebours and Oscar Wilde's: The picture of Dorian Gray.In the first paragraph we are told what it is that happens in the end:¡Triste destino el de los dos! El viejo rosal de nuestros amores volvía a florecer para deshojarse piadoso sobre una sepultura.2Thus, the reader's attention is focused more fully on the story, than on the development of the plot.
This somehow alienates the reader from the text; the reader knows what happens at the end and therefore will not be completely carried into the novel. The reader can view the novel more objectively if they know what is going to happen, rather than subjectively, if they are engrossed in suspense. This is a modern concept, which has been classified in drama by Bertolt Brecht as Verfremdungseffekt: alienation, distancing effect.
