Spanish and Portuguese ETDs

Publication Date

5-13-1970

Abstract

This study will examine various aspects of the supernatural as it appears in the short stories of Manuel Gutiérrez Nájera, Rubén Darío, and Leopoldo Lugones. It is believed that an appreciation of the techniques of fantastic exploration in the fiction of these writers will clarify the late nineteenth-century "crisis in beliefs" and cult of artistic spiritualism which in part characterized the Modernist aesthetic. In Chapter One appear the theoretical bases for the supernatural phenomena observed. Animism, a kind of primitive mysticism, seems to underly the Modernists’ view of the universe. Following Animism, Sympathetic Magic is examined. As any "Practice" is a natural outgrowth of an underlying "Theory," the animistic "quintaessence" discussed in Chapter One provides the background for the magical manipulations of the forces of nature which occur in Modernist fiction. The Poet as a Magus occupies Chapter Three. The operator of magical deeds and formulator of animistic theories appears in contrast to his mechanistic counterpart, the scientist and physician. Inspiration for the poetic operator is absorbed from the universe in the form of Dreams and Hallucinations, the subject of Chapter Four. The fifth and last chapter is concerned with the most obvious, but by no means least significant, result of supernatural and spiritualistic doctrines, the production of Supernatural Beings, both material and ethereal. Various supernatural moments are examined: the emergence of supernatural creatures such as ghosts and apparitions; the appearance of devilish figures; transformations of supernatural forces into material objects and metamorphoses of creatures of legend and literature. A spiritualist doctrine emerges from the fiction of Modernism. Upon examining the variety of supernatural experiences depicted in the short stories, the reader discovers occultist attitudes about the nature of life and the dangers inherent in existence, including man's ignorance of his spiritual roots, his commitment to the destructive implications of tangible reality, and his worst failing, erecting the image of Science as the one and only Almighty. It is hoped that this voyage into the supernatural as a basis of Modernist aesthetics will contribute to our general understanding of the movement and perhaps as well to the formulation of methods and perspectives for future study.

Degree Name

Spanish & Portuguese (PhD)

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Spanish and Portuguese

First Committee Member (Chair)

Ned J. Davison

Second Committee Member

Robert Deupree Herron

Third Committee Member

Raymond Ralph MacCurdy

Language

English

Document Type

Dissertation

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