MODERNISMO: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

Usually two opposing forces can be discerned in a movement: rise and fall, in the first case, we deal w i th the avant-garde of the particular cultural literary movement. When discussing the fall of a movement, one can unveil the similarities among creative poets, who once were partakers of the vanguard, but later strode their own ways. The poets' common share, thus, in shaping the passing period of literary activities is revealed. Hence, by Modernismo, in this study should be understood the early preparatory period of young poets such as Najera, Marti, Casal, Silva, and Dario. It is diff icult to determine precisely either the movement's origin or its apex wi th dates. In general, the year, 1882, when Mart i ( l ) and Najera wrote their firsl modernista poetry can be set as the terminus a quo and the year, 1896(2), in which Dario's Prosas profanas was published, as the terminus ad quem. Dario's book synthesized Romantic sentimental phe nomena wi th the finely sculptured Parnassian verse and wi th symbolic nuances and word-music; in this way , Dario's work established the modernista renovation in the Hispanic wor ld and thus it is considered to be the height of the rise of Modernismo.