El más literato de todos los periodistas o el más periodista de todos los literatos: Mariano de Cavia en El Liberal. La retórica argumentativa de la serie «Plato del día»

Mariano de Cavia is one of the leading turn-of-the-century figures in literary journalism. However, his works still remain forgotten. The difficulty of accessing such a huge, dispersed and up-to-date corpus of works has provoked a general disregard amongst scholars. All the same, a thorough analysis of his works is essential to understand the evolution of Spanish prose during the 19th and 20th centuries. This paper is concerned with two main objectives: first, to address an examination of his personality, education and professional deontology in order to define his position between the realists and the generation of the end of the century. On the other hand, I have made an initial advance concerning one of his most famous headlines, «Plato del dia». The examination of its argumentative rhetoric allowed us to recognize an important link in the evolution of 19th century prose towards the 20th century.