Towards an intertwined history of symbolism, modernism and the avant-garde in Portugal and Spain

Abstract

Iberian literatures provide a particularly attractive setting for comparative study within the period internationally known as modernism. Such analyses highlight the numerous ideological and aesthetic flows that crossed the borders of national literatures in the Peninsula during the period. From a perspective that uses the tools of polysystems theory as formulated by Itamar Even-Zohar, in conjunction with the theory of Entangled History, crossed by the heterogeneous continuum formula inherent to the spirit of a ‘tradition of rupture’, as stated by Octavio Paz, I offer an interpretation of the relations established among symbolism, modernism and the avant-garde in the Peninsula, as illustrated in the cases of Eugénio de Castro and Teixeira de Pascoaes, and with reference to the footprint that they left in Spanish literature.