HistoryModernismo was a Spanish-American literary movement that evolved during the 1800's in Latin America. Cuban Revolutionist José Martí was the founder of the movement although there was many works from Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío. The movement spread to Spain in the twentieth century. Modernismo had influences from French symbolism and elements from classic Spanish literature. The movement was over by the 1920's but it still managed to influence Latin American poets throughout the twentieth century.
AnalysisFatality by Ruben Dario is a poem that the author uses to express his feelings about humanity. The purpose of this poem was to allow readers to understand his feelings about life in comparison to his favorable feelings of death. Throughout the entirety of the poem, he expresses his true feelings about being human and how sad and depressing it actually is to live in this state. “There's no pain as great as being alive no burden heavier than that of conscious life” shows us, as readers, that he would rather live life as an inanimate object such as a rock or a tree because they do not have to go through the pain and suffering as humans do.
Literary Devices |
Fatality by Ruben DarioThe tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient;
the hard rock is happier still, it feels nothing: there is no pain as great as being alive, no burden heavier than that of conscious life. To be, and to know nothing, and to lack a way, and the dread of having been, and future terrors... And the sure terror of being dead tomorrow, and to suffer all through life and through the darkness, and through what we do not know and hardly suspect... And the flesh that temps us with bunches of cool grapes, and the tomb that awaits us with its funeral sprays, and not to know where we go, nor whence we came!... |
Personification- This poem uses personification when he talks about the emotion of the tree and of the rock. “The tree is happy because it is scarcely sentient; the hard rock is happier still it feels nothing:" The author used personification to give this poem more of a dramatic effect to the reader.
Assonance- The literary device assonance is also used with “scarcely sentient” using the repletion of the “s” sound. Assonance is used to give the piece a better flow when read aloud.
Assonance- The literary device assonance is also used with “scarcely sentient” using the repletion of the “s” sound. Assonance is used to give the piece a better flow when read aloud.