Valle Inclán, Ramón del

Valle Inclán, Ramón del rämōnˈ dĕl väˈlyā ēnklänˈ [key], 1866–1936, Spanish writer, a member of the Generation of '98. Valle Inclán was deeply influenced by foreign literary trends, especially by modernismo. An eccentric who cultivated bizarre legends about himself, he published a collection of sensational, erotic tales, Femeninas (1895). He used himself as the model for the old libertine hero of his Sonatas (1902–5, tr. The Pleasant Memoirs of the Marquis de Bradomín, 1924). His symbolist aesthetic is expressed in his poetic works such as Aromas de leyenda (1907). Among his plays are Águila de blasón [eagle of honor] (1907), in prose, and La Marquesa Rosalinda (1913) in verse. In his later works he satirized Spanish life in grotesque caricatures that he called esperpentos. Reminiscent of the nightmare etchings of Goya, these include Luces de Bohemia (1920).

See studies by R. Lima (1972) and J. Lyon (1983).

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