1 The esperpento is a Spanish theatrical modality conceived by Ramón del Valle-Inclán (1866-1936) in his play Luces de Bohemia (1920) [1] (Lights of Bohemia) that he applied in subsequent plays and also novels. The esperpento has been regarded as a quintessentially Spanish genre [2]—although, it has been claimed, it roughly resembles Bertolt Brecht’s and Alfred Jarry’s absurdist plays, and Antonin Artaud’s theatre of cruelty. [3] In this article, I will prove that the main features of the esperpento, as they appear in Lights of Bohemia, were previously employed coherently by August Strindberg in Spöksonaten (1907) (The Ghost Sonata). Although it is very likely that Valle-Inclán was familiar with Strindberg’s plays, it is impossible to demonstrate that Lights of Bohemia was influenced by The Ghost Sonata. The aim of this paper is to establish that the esperpento is not a product of Spain’s literary conditions in the early twentieth century, but rather a result of the Modernist mentality and aesthetics that had been developing in Northern Europe since the 1890s. Indeed Ibsen and Strindberg were, as a critic has recently reminded us, [4] the most innovatory playwrights of the day, and The Ghost Sonata was among the most radically ground-breaking pieces of the early twentieth century. [5] My analysis of both plays will show that The Ghost Sonata must be regarded as the first esperpento play.

2 Valle-Inclán is hailed as one of Spain’s most accomplished writers of all time. His first works were predominantly symbolist narratives, as exemplified by his four sonatas—Sonata de otoño (1902) (Autumn Sonata), Sonata de estío (1903) (Summer Sonata), Sonata de primavera (1904) (Spring Sonata), and Sonata de invierno (1905) (Winter Sonata)—, a series of short novels telling of the love adventures of a decadent Don Juan character, called the Marquis of Bradomín. The sonatas established Valle-Inclán as one of the leading Spanish writers of his day and as the genuine representative of Spanish symbolism. His highly sophisticated poetic prose had no equal in Spain, and the sonatas and other texts, e.g. Flor de santidad (1904) (The Flower of Sanctity) earned him the respect of most of his contemporaries and a place in the annals of literature. Nonetheless, in a time of literary experimentation, Valle-Inclán soon moved away from symbolism. He had been born and raised in Galicia, a predominantly rural region with a strong Celtic heritage in the northeast corner of Spain. The Winter Sonata took place in Galicia, which Valle-Inclán portrayed as a melancholic land. Conversely, his plays Aguila de blasón (1907) (The Coat Eagle) and Romance de lobos (1908) (Romance of Wolves), were set in a sombre and deeply underdeveloped Galicia, where the people lived in severe poverty. The beauty and refinement of his earlier novels were gradually replaced by the depiction of social misery; the main character in both these plays is an evil squire named Juan de Montenegro, who represents (hyperbolically) the moral corruption of the rural aristocracy. Like Bradomín, Montenegro is an anti-hero. Montenegro’s attitudes, however, are lacking in idealism; he personifies and enforces a dark age upon his land. In 1908 and 1909, Valle-Inclán published Los cruzados de la causa (The Crusaders of the Cause), El resplandor de la hoguera (The Light in the Bonfire) and Gerifaltes de antaño (Chieftains from the Past), three novels about the Spanish Carlist Wars, where the symbolist style was interspersed with rustic vocabulary. Between 1909 and 1920, Valle-Inclán wrote a number of plays, e.g. La cabeza del dragón (The Head of the Dragon), Cuento de abril (An April Tale), La marquesa Rosalinda (Marquise Rosalinda), in which symbolism was gradually replaced by a pessimistic tone. In 1920 he published Luces de Bohemia (Lights of Bohemia), which is considered the first esperpento.

3 With Lights of Bohemia Valle-Inclán explicitly introduced the esperpento as his new literary aesthetic. In scene XII, the main character—Max Estrella, a celebrated poet who is dramatically penniless—and his selfish friend Don Latino, ramble in the night through the streets of Madrid. At dawn, as they feel the morning cold, Max promises to immortalise Don Latino in a novel. When Latino replies that a tragedy would be more appropriate, Max claims, “La tragedia nuestra no es tragedia… es esperpento” (161) [6] (our tragedy is not a tragedy … it is the esperpento). Latino asks him to stop joking, and Max explains, “El esperpento lo ha inventado Goya. Los héroes clásicos han ido a pasearse en el callejón del Gato… Los héroes clásicos reflejados en los espejos cóncavos dan el Esperpento. El sentido trágico de la vida española sólo puede darse con una estética sistemáticamente deformada” (162) (The esperpento was invented by Goya. The classic heroes have taken a stroll along the Cat’s alley… When the classic heroes are reflected in concave mirrors, that is the esperpento. The tragic sense of Spanish life can only be pictured by means of a systematically deformed aesthetic). Valle-Inclán refers to the concave mirrors in the Cat’s alley in Madrid. Classic heroes would become funny caricatures of themselves if they looked in these curved mirrors that deform reality. And the reality of Spanish life is as grotesquely deformed as the images in these mirrors.

4 The writers of the age had been deeply affected by Spain’s defeat in 1898 in the Cuban war, resulting in the loss of the three remaining colonies of the Spanish empire. For Valle-Inclán, Spain, once a vast empire, had become a deformation of herself. Max states, “España es una deformación grotesca de la civilización europea” (162) (Spain is a grotesque deformation of European civilisation). The esperpento technique deforms reality in order to make it appear more grotesque than it already is. The esperpento is a hyperbolic representation of the miseries of society, a form of satire that systematically deforms all of reality. Max further explains: “La deformación deja de serlo cuando está sujeta a una matemática perfecta. Mi estética actual es transformar con matemática de espejo cóncavo las normas clásicas” (163) (A deformity is no longer a deformity when it is the consequence of a perfect natural law. My current aesthetic is to transform classic norms with the natural law of a concave mirror). Valle-Inclán also sought to deform “classic norms” because when all of reality is deformed, deformities become the only reality.

5 The esperpento can therefore be understood as a reaction against Spain’s decadence, and as a satirical look into the misery that impregnated all strata of private and public life; in Lights of Bohemia these include the booksellers, the prostitutes, the underclass, the journalists, the police officers, and a secretary of state. In this play, most characters are inelegant and grotesque, egotistical and petty, and Spain is portrayed as “a grotesque deformation of European civilisation” and of her own glorious past. The aesthetics of esperpento follow the stream of social criticism that engulfed early twentieth-century Spanish literature, e.g. in novels such as Camino de perfección (1902) (The Way to Perfection) and El árbol de la ciencia (1911) (The Tree of Science) by Pío Baroja, or La voluntad (1902) (The Will) by Azorín; in Antonio Machado’s poems in Campos de Castilla (The Fields of Castile); or in the essays Idearium español (1897) by Ángel Ganivet, En torno al casticismo (1895) (On Spain’s Quintessence) by Miguel de Unamuno, and España invertebrada (1922) (Broken Spain) by José Ortega y Gasset, to name but a few. The esperpento became Valle-Inclán’s trademark, which he introduced in Lights of Bohemia and employed subsequently in plays such as Los cuernos de don Friolera (1921) (Don Friolera’s Horns), Las galas del difunto (1926) (The Deadman’s Finery), La hija del capitán (1927) (The Captain’s Daughter) and in his novels Tirano Banderas (1926) (Banderas the Tyrant), La corte de los Milagros (1927) (The Court of Miracles), Viva mi dueño (1928) (Long Life to my Master) and Baza de espadas (1932) (Trick of Spades). In many ways, the esperpento became the most effective satire of contemporary Spain. The noun esperpento, which Valle-Inclán had coined, was naturalised in the Spanish language and it is still widely used today; it is included in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (the only official dictionary of the Spanish language), to mean “hecho grotesco o desatinado” (a grotesque or inappropriate deed) and “persona o cosa notable por su fealdad, desaliño o mala traza” (a person or an object that is known for its ugliness, scruffiness, and wickedness). Alongside the noun esperpento, the Spanish dictionary also includes the adjective esperpéntico.

6 The esperpento was classed alongside the turn-of-the-century Spanish post-colonial literature committed to social criticism. For decades, the writers grouped under the denomination Generation of 98 were differentiated from the poets of the day, whom Spanish critics refer to as Modernistas. The foil Generation of 98-Modernism was questioned in the 1960s by Ricardo Gullón, [7] who proclaimed that critics need to consider the Generation of 98 to be a part of the wider Modernist movement. In recent years, research into the Generation of 98 and their consanguinity with European Modernism has gained momentum. However, there is still a strong resistance within Spanish Studies to admit that the writers of the Generation of 98 are intrinsically Modernist—according to European parameters—and even to use the term Modernism. This reluctance has been exposed by Donald Shaw in the Oxford Handbook of Modernisms as one of the major weaknesses in present Spanish Studies. Shaw denounces “the resistance of Hispanic writers and critics to passively adopting Anglo-Saxon terms which may not, in their view, really fit their literature”. [8] In the monographic issue of Anales de la Literatura Española Contemporánea on Modernism, Christopher Soufas has pointed out that “Spanish criticism has been much too slow to recognize the rather unique position of strength from which Spanish literature comes to modernism”. [9] Spanish studies may have not yet fully assimilated the illuminating theses posed in Bradbury and McFarlane’s volume Modernism, first published in 1976, which helped to understand Modernism as the literary movement that roughly spanned from the 1890s to the 1930s not only in verse but also in the novel and the theatre. [10] Recent research has sought to place the writers of the Generation of 98 in their European context. This area of research has predominantly focused on the novels by Baroja and Unamuno. [11] The case of the theatre may be more complex due to the fact that the differing varieties of Modernist theatre, in its many forms, complicates its study— “The essential ephemerality of the theatre drives historians to cling to textuality, leaving an enormous gap in the history of modernist theatre”, Kirsten Shepherd-Barr has warned. [12] Theatre in early-twentieth-century Spain was largely stuck on its own old ways. The most popular plays of the day were pieces in verse (a somewhat obsolete form in Europe) by Francisco Villaespesa and Eduardo Marquina, and the comic plays by Jacinto Benavente, the Álvarez Quintero brothers and Carlos Arniches. These were extremely widespread in Spain and Benavente was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1922. Alongside others, such as Miguel de Unamuno, Jacinto Grau and Federico García Lorca, Valle-Inclán’s esperpento may be regarded as the most innovative of theatrical forms in Spain.

7 In Lights of Bohemia Max claims that the esperpento “was invented by Goya” (supra). The acknowledgement of Goya’s pictorial aesthetics, as may be observed in his series of etchings known as Caprichos, makes the esperpento a very Spanish genre. Indeed, to Spanish scholars and to the Spanish general reader, the esperpento is quintessentially Spanish. Certainly, Valle-Inclán’s plays deformed reality as Goya’s pictures had. However, contextualising Valle-Inclán’s plays in the European literature of the turn of the century inevitably requires consideration of the innovative theatre written in Scandinavian countries since the late 1880s. Research into the influence of Scandinavian Modernism on early-twentieth-century Spanish authors is very scarce, [13] and the relevance of Scandinavian literature and its impact on Spanish authors has largely been overlooked. This may, to some extent, be one of the consequences of the work by those Hispanists who have advocated the international contextualisation of Spanish literature and exaggerated the quality and the innovatory nature of Spanish Modernism. Soufas claims that “There is no modernist tradition as rich as Spain’s”, [14] although Spanish theatre, as I have pointed out above, was far behind that of Ibsen and others. Nil Santiáñez proclaims that Spain was the first country to use the term Modernism; [15] yet Georg Brandes in 1883 had christened the new trends in Scandinavian letters, which may be taken to mark the dawn of Modernism in Europe, with the expression moderne gennembruds (Modern Breakthrough).

8 Strindberg has attracted very little critical attention within Spanish Studies. I have compared the use of dreams in Unamuno’s novels to Strindberg’s Ett Drömspel (1901) (A Dream Play), [16] and noted that both authors were widely committed to the same Modernist themes. Luis Sánchez Laílla has noted the use of elves, fairies, monsters and a magic ring in Valle-Inclán’s La cabeza del dragón (The Head of the Dragon) and in Strindberg’s Lycko-Pers resa (1882) (The Journey of Peter the Fortunate), although he concedes that such themes were common at the time. [17] In 1988 Volker Roloff compared Lights of Bohemia to Strindberg’s Til Damaskus (in two parts, published 1898) (To Damascus) [18] and noted structural similarities. Shortly after, Dolors Sabaté Planes sustained that the esperpento follows the German expressionist theatre that flourished between 1910 and 1925. With regards to Strindberg, Sabaté Planes considers that it is “altamente improbable que [Valle-Inclán] conociera la obra en cuestión [Til Damaskus]” (highly improbable that he [Valle-Inclán] knew the work in question [Til Damaskus]); she further suggests that both Spain and Germany were, in that decade, under the effects of a social crisis, and observes—yet in very general terms—in the esperpento the same aesthetics as in Georg Heym’s Der Irre (1911). [19]

9 Indeed, there were no Spanish translations of Til Damaskus (parts I and II) in Valle-Inclán’s times. However, the holdings of the Biblioteca Nacional in Madrid show that a considerable number of Strindberg’s works in French and German translations were available in Spain—most of these volumes may have been catalogued around the time of their publication. The Biblioteca Nacional holds copies of a German translation of Nach Damaskus (1916), of the French translations of the novel L’inspector Axel Borg (1902) and of the play Creánciers (1894), and also of a collection of plays entitled Dramaturgie (1920). It is likely that Spaniards initially read Strindberg in French, because two Spanish translations followed immediately after French translations kept in the Biblioteca Nacional—Cinco dramas en un acto (1929) was published two years after Cinq pièces en un acte (1927), and Danza macabra (1921) the same year as La danse de mort (1921). Two of Strindberg’s works were also translated into Spanish before 1920: A orillas del mar in 1900 and Padre in 1910. The holdings of the Biblioteca Nacional suggest that Strindberg was well known to a certain number of Spaniards from approximately 1900 until the 1920s, a period when Scandinavian theatre was regarded the avant-garde of European theatre, and interest in Ibsen and other Nordic authors was at its highest. [20] Some critics have noted that Strindberg was often cited in Spanish periodicals. [21] In any case, Valle-Inclán himself resided in France from 1914 to 1918, where and when Strindberg was a well-known author and The Ghost Sonata was acclaimed as one of his best works. [22] For all these reasons it is highly unlikely that Valle-Inclán did not know about or had not read Strindberg.

10 The tone and the main features of the esperpento can be noticed very clearly in Strindberg’s The Ghost Sonata. I do not mean to claim that Valle-Inclán was inspired, consciously or unconsciously, by The Ghost Sonata; but it is most likely that Valle-Inclán knew about this play and had even read it in French or seen it performed during his four-year stay in France. Instead of whether there is or is not a direct influence from Strindberg, the main point that needs to be made is that the esperpento is not a quintessentially Spanish genre, but a form of literature that is deeply rooted in European Modernism and was first conceived or at least clearly anticipated by Strindberg. [23] Indeed, the esperpento was not, as Valle-Inclán declared (supra), invented by Goya, instead it was invented by Strindberg.

11 The Ghost Sonata is one of Strindberg’s theatrical pieces that he named the chamber plays [24] and wrote for the Intima Teatern in Stockholm. These pieces were intended to be simple and to be performed for the small audiences of the Intima Teatern. In their conception, the chamber plays may seem different from the esperpento; however, Strindberg believed that the main principle in the composition of these plays lay in innovation and in compositional freedom, which led to a genuinely new form of theatre. At their root, both the esperpento and The Ghost Sonata were conceived under the same aesthetic principle—the grotesque deformation of reality; as Michael Robinson has noted about The Ghost Sonata, “Its characters [in Strindberg’s play] are the grotesque and ghostly denizens of a designedly metaphorical, waking nightmare—the nightmare of everyday life”. [25] Indeed, grotesque is a word commonly used to describe The Ghost Sonata, and the Oxford English-Spanish dictionary describes esperpento as “theatre of the grotesque”. [26] Valle-Inclán sought to grotesquely deform both the “classic norms” and the miseries of reality itself; Strindberg claimed that in The Ghost Sonata, he intended to write a fairy-tale or fantasy play set in the present time. [27] The modus operandi is the same—Valle-Inclán shows that classic heroes no longer exist in Spain, and Strindberg shows that fairy-tales are no longer believable. They both think of a beautiful past, and they both picture the present time as a deformity of that past; furthermore, they both deform reality to express the radical and painful decomposition of mundane existence. In Jon Berry’s words, in The Ghost Sonata “Strindberg seems to require that his audience accept his personal vision (minus a modicum of artistic exaggeration, of course) as a true depiction of the way things are”, [28] a statement that would also describe Valle-Inclán’s esperpento plays.

12 There are several elements and motives that contribute to creating the same general tone in both plays, including the Damoclean presence of death, the satire of money and happiness, and the use of mirrors to distort or nullify reality. I shall now discuss these general themes before undergoing a close analysis of the main features of the esperpento in Lights of Bohemia and in The Ghost Sonata.

13 Strindberg’s and Valle-Inclán’s personal perceptions of society were part of the turn-of-the-century philosophical crisis that in Spain found its most passionate expressions in the anti-positivist novels by Azorín and Baroja and in Unamuno’s novels and plays. This literature revolves around death as the imminent end of a life that often or always seems desperately empty of meaning. In the first scene of Lights of Bohemia, Max suggests to his wife and daughter that they should all commit suicide because death is the only escape from the disheartening reality of life. His wife objects that their daughter is too young to die, and Max notes that young people only kill themselves out of Romanticism. When Max states that youngsters love life, he is implying that older people, who have fully experienced life, loathe it, and regrets that he and his wife cannot commit suicide because of their daughter. Evident in this conversation is the same ironic tone that permeates the whole text. However, death becomes, from the outset of the play, the obvious escape to the miseries of life. Max’s death, old and exhausted after rumbling through the gloomy streets of the big city in the cold of the night, comes as the inevitable end to his life. The play comes full circle when, in the last scene, it is revealed that a woman and her daughter have committed suicide—the reader/audience will inevitably assume these are Max’s wife and daughter.

14 Similarly, The Ghost Sonata has been described as “a dance of the death that resonates with Strindberg’s own deep personal anguish”. [29] Death is also ubiquitous in Strindberg’s play. In scene I we learn that the newspapers have praised the main character—a student named Arkenholz—for his providential and heroic intervention in the scene of an accident. Arkenholz represents life, whereas Hummel and other old characters represent the omnipresence of death and demonstrate that a man can lie and deceive others, but death will irremediably reveal the truth. In The Ghost Sonata, like in Valle-Inclán’s play, death becomes a fatalist motif, the destiny that awaits all humans and nullifies all hopes of happiness. In Strindberg’s play, the death of the Young Lady condemns Arkenholz to a loveless and dismal existence and leads to the realisation that society is evil and life hardly worth living.

15 When Max finally dies, his belief that death is the only escape from reality is realised. The suicide of his wife and daughter following his death ratify this conviction. Egil Törnqvist has suggested that “The fundamental idea of the play [The Ghost Sonata]… is that life on earth is painful and illusory and that when we die we are saved from this pseudo-existence (back) to the original one”. [30] Indeed both plays use death as the reminder of life’s meaninglessness. Valle-Inclán satirises his society by means of his ruthless esperpentic deformations. Strindberg blames humans for the miseries of life. The last words of The Ghost Sonata, spoken by Arkenholz, after he has experienced the bitter pains of life, and referring to the Young Lady, are most eloquent: “Poor little child, child of this world of illusion, guilt, suffering and death; this world of endless change, disappointment and pain. May the Lord of Heaven have mercy on you on your journey…” (286). In Lights of Bohemia, after the death of Max, Bradomín (the main character of Valle-Inclán’s sonatas) and Rubén Darío (the actual Nicaraguan poet regarded then and now as the leading Modernist poet in the Spanish language) talk about death. Bradomín states, “Nosotros divinizamos la muerte. No es más que un instante la vida, la única verdad es la muerte” (186) (We idealise death. Life is only a moment in time; death is the only truth). In scene XIV—the last scene of the play—other characters converse about the suicide of Max’s wife and daughter. The play closes with Pica Lagartos stating “El mundo es una controversia” (205) (the world is a controversy), Don Latino replying, “Un esperpento”, and the Drunk Man saying “¡Cráneo privilegiado!” (gifted brains!), using the same expression as earlier in the play to refer to Max (64, 68, 72). Valle-Inclán uses two scenes (XIII and XIV) to express the same pessimistic vision of life that Strindberg superbly and cogently condenses in Alkenholz’s last words—life is illusion, suffering, disappointment and pain, and irredeemably leads to death.

16 The gloomy reality of life in an ominous society is one of the main themes of both The Ghost Sonata and Lights of Bohemia. In both plays the main characters set out on a journey and gradually discover the miserable reality of society. [31] Like Max in his tour of Madrid, Arkenholz is, as Törnqvist has described him, “an outsider who only gradually gains insight into the true state of events”. [32] Despite being blind, Max witnesses the misery and egotism of society. Arkenholz is a Sunday child, someone who has the power to see visions—these visions are an alternative reality that others cannot see. Both of these characters look at the world differently from how the other characters do, and both will come to see the true reality. In the first scenes Max perseveres in trusting his friend Don Latino to take his books to be sold to Zaratustra. Yet both his wife and daughter keep explaining to him that Zaratustra is paying too little for the books and that Don Latino is spending the money. Before embarking on the eternal journey (meaning death) that Max yearns for in scene I, Max undergoes a journey in which he further realises the bitter reality about Don Latino and other characters, such as Zaratustra, his friend the corrupted secretary of state, the ruthless policemen and the journalists. Likewise, Arkenholz discovers the truth about the Colonel and about Hummel. As Hummel states, “we still find ourselves in situations where opportunities sometimes arise to reveal what is most secret, when the mask is torn from the deceiver, when the villain is exposed” (274). Indeed, Hummel will contribute to tearing the mask off the Colonel, who is revealed as a seducer and, in Hummel’s words, “a certain footman, Mr XYZ [who] doesn’t recognize himself; the one who used to scrounge food in a certain kitchen” (272). Thus, the Colonel, who has appeared as the most respectable and refined of characters in the play, is deprived of his mask. Hummel, who has distinguished himself as the benefactor of Arkenholz and a champion of the truth, is exposed by Bengtsson, who declares: “He [Hummel] sat there like a vampire sucking all the goodness out of the house, and turned us all to skeletons—and he nearly got us put into prison for calling the cook a thief! Later I came across this man in Hamburg, under another name. He was now a usurer, a bloodsucker; besides which he was accused of having lured a young girl out on to the ice to drown her, all because she’d witnessed a crime he feared would be discovered…” (275-276).

17 Mirrors are the key catalyser of reality in both plays. In Lights of Bohemia, the curved mirrors distort reality and reflect the real deformity of the human soul. No matter how respectful a character may look, the concave mirrors deform his appearance and show the true ugliness of his soul. In The Ghost Sonata Strindberg uses a mirror to offer an alternative view on reality. Early in the play, the Old Lady, who was Hummel’s fiancée sixty years earlier, appears “sitting down in the window by the gossip mirror” (257). Afterwards, Hummel describes the power of this mirror: “Now my fiancée is closing her window… seventy-nine, she is… that gossip mirror is the only one she uses, because she doesn’t see herself in it, only the outside world, and from two directions, but the world can see her, she hasn’t thought of that… A fine old lady, all the same…” (260). In addition to the gossip mirror, Strindberg uses a normal mirror to show the actual reality as it is. When Hummel confronts the Coronel, Hummel commands him to remove his wig and moustache, and look in a “mirror” (272) in order to see his real person. Whilst Valle-Inclán’s curved mirrors distort the external reality and expose inner ugliness, in The Ghost Sonata a mirror can show reality if reality is disposed of the ennobling elements that conceal it. All the same, the concave mirror in the Spanish play and the gossip mirror in the Swedish one both have the power to change one’s vision of reality. The mirrors in the cat’s alley distort reality; the gossip mirror nullifies reality. Both mirrors show an image of the world that no one longs to see— the curved mirrors show the ugliness of the soul; the gossip mirror does not reflect the image of the person who looks into it and thus shows the nihilism of life. Hummel emphasises the fact that the Old Lady cannot see herself in the mirror, but others can see her. Both the curved mirrors and the gossip mirror allow us to see the misery of our lives; both are metaphors for the existential desperation that dominates both plays.

18 The realisation of social and existential miseries in a life-long journey threatened by death is the key theme common to both plays. Most importantly, however, the main features of the esperpento are clearly developed in The Ghost Sonata. Countless studies have analysed the nature and contexture of the esperpento. [33] Overall, critics concur in recognising seven features of the esperpento: [34] (1) the distortion of reality; (2) the ridiculing de-humanisation of characters; (3) the use of contrasts; (4) scathing humour; (5) sophisticated language characterised by the inclusion of many different registers; (6) fast dialogues; (7) rich stage directions. Withal, only 1 and 2 are essentially archetypical of the esperpento, whereas 3 to 7 can be found in plays that are not strictly esperpentic. The Ghost Sonata clearly conveys features 1 and 2, and to a large extent also 3 to 7.

19 In Lights of Bohemia reality is distorted (as explained above) in order to exaggerate the miseries of life and to expose the actual ugliness that the characters conceal behind their professional position and appearance. The majority of characters (with the exceptions of Max, his wife and daughter, and possibly the anarchist prisoner) are portrayed in a distorting light. As a consequence of this, the reader/audience is presented with a version of society that is opposite to what it should be or pretends to be—Zaratustra, the book seller who should love literature and appreciate writers like Max, is a heartless merchant who only thinks of profits; Max, the eminent writer, lives in poverty; the police, who should keep the order, are repressive in all their actions; etc. This distortion of reality is often ironic. The curved mirrors distort reality showing ugliness; likewise, Valle-Inclán sometimes describes unworthy characters in a sublime way in order to ironically denote that these characters lack the grandeur that should be expected of them. For example, in the stage directions opening scene IV, Valle-Inclán includes the police patrolling the streets: “De tarde en tarde el asfalto sonoro. Un trote épico. Soldados romanos. Sombras de guardias. Se extingue el eco de la patrulla” (73) (Every now and then, a sound on the ground. Epic trotting. Roman soldiers. The shadows of officers. The echoes of the patrol vanish). The police are ennobled—they ride their horses like epic knights, and they march like disciplined Roman soldiers. However, this is ironic because the police are consistently portrayed throughout the play as a repressive force; here their epic and disciplined appearance soon gives way to their threatening presence—they are shadows that vanish. This way, Valle-Inclán morphs them into heroes in order to show what they are not; that is, he ironically distorts reality in order to further expose the meanness of the police.

20 Reality is consistently distorted in The Ghost Sonata. When, early in the play, Hummel gives his account of his professional relationship with Arkenholz’s father, the young student ponders, “It is strange how a story can be told in two such different ways” (254). The most striking distortion of reality takes place in scene II, in the Colonel’s house. Johansson hears noises and Bengtsson gives a most esperpentic description of the dinner parties in the household: “Just the usual ghost supper, as we call it. They drink tea and never say a word or the Colonel talks all by himself; and then they nibble their biscuits, all of them at the same time, so it sounds like rats in the attic” (265). Shortly afterwards, Hummel observes, “This place is haunted” (268). Strindberg offers a distorted and most grotesque picture of reality: dinners, where people enjoy food and converse, are actually the meetings of taciturn ghosts who nibble biscuits like rats would do. The picture is purely esperpentic in that people and objects are painted in the most grotesque way in order to distort reality.

21 Henceforth, in The Ghost Sonata reality is portrayed in a grotesque way— characters are distorted and reality is always questioned. The image of the ghosts at dinner is repeated throughout the play, as a paradigmatic example of the hidden realities of society. When the Young Lady explains to Arkenholz that her parents hardly engage in conversation “because they’ve nothing to say to each other, because neither believe what the other says” (279), she is unmasking the reality of the Colonel’s honourable household. The Colonel’s wife is a shining example of the esperpento technique: she is old and ugly as a mummy, and she is always referred to as “the Mummy” (266 et passim), even in the list of dramatis personae. In The Ghost Sonata reality is always distorted in a grotesque fashion, comparing people to ghosts and vampires. Another example of extreme grotesqueness is provided by the cook who details the contents of the bottle of soya: “The colouring bottle, the devil’s elixir with the scorpion-like lettering. Soya, the witch, who turns water into bouillon; we use it to replace the gravy, to cook cabbage in, and to make mock turtle soup… You suck the life out of us, and we out of you, we take the blood, and give you back the water—with colouring. This is the colouring!— I am going now, but all the same, I’ll stay as long as I want!” (283). Ultimately, the grotesque distortion of reality stresses the denunciation of the reality concealed behind the honourable appearance of society, where nothing is what it seems. As Arkenholz claims in the last scene of the play, “I saw a colonel that was not a colonel, I had a noble benefactor who wasn’t one, and a virgin who—speaking of which, where is virginity to be found?” (285).

22 In the esperpento plays, characters are degraded, ridiculed and dehumanised in many ways. Don Latino, who remains by Max’s side throughout Lights of Bohemia, provides an example of this, since he always reveals himself to be a selfish and petty character. For example, when Max comes across Rubén—i.e., Rubén Darío, the renowned Nicaraguan poet—and invites him to have dinner with champagne, Don Latino says, “Querido Max, hagamos un trato. Yo me bebo modestamente una chica de cerveza y tú me apoquinas en pasta lo que me había de costar la bebecua” (136) (dear Max, let’s make a deal. I can humbly drink a small lager, and you give me in cash the cost of what I would have drunk). Acting as a selfish individual concerned only with money and his well-being, Don Latino’s attitude always contrasts with Max’s tragic stoicism. By degrading Don Latino, Valle-Inclán ennobles Max. The secretary of state also exemplifies the esperpentic degradation of characters. The secretary is badly dressed and corrupt. His description is not what one would expect of a senior civil servant who is immediately below the prime minister; conversely, he looks like an average clerk in a small, dark office. As he is described in the stage directions, “Su Excelencia abre la puerta de su despacho y asoma en mangas de camisa, la bragueta desabrochada, el chaleco suelto y los quevedos pendientes de un cordon, como dos ojos absurdos bailándole sobre la panza” (122) (the honourable secretary of state opens the door and appears without a blazer. His fly is open; his waistcoat is loose; his small spectacles are hanging from a cord, like two ridiculous eyes dancing on his belly). He is an old acquaintance of Max’s and, when he learns about the poet’s financial difficulties, offers him a regular income that will be taken to his address monthly, with no contractual obligations whatsoever. Valle-Inclán so degrades one of the most senior civil servants in the country. Some institutions are also ridiculed and charged with flippancy. Valle-Inclán uses the secretary of state to shame politicians and the political establishment. The Real Academia Española (Royal Academy of the Spanish Language), whose members are authors and scholars, is consistently humiliated as a valueless institution that fails to appreciate literature, e.g. Max tells Rubén Darío that Don Latino is “¡un hombre que desprecia tu poesía, como si fuese Académico!” (134) (a man who despises your poetry, just like a member of the Royal Academy would!). When one of the young modernist poets, moved by Max’s situation, tells him that they will formally make a proposal to the Royal Academy so that Max occupies the chair left by the late Galdós, Max sarcastically replies, “Nombrarán al Sargento Basallo” (79) (they will appoint Sergeant Basallo), a sergeant who became famous in Spain after he was imprisoned in the African war and who, of course, had no credentials whatsoever as an author. Later in the play, Max is arrested and declares, “Tengo el honor de no ser académico” (91) (I have the honour of not being a member of the Royal Academy). The Royal Academy thus appears as a worthless and populist institution that, instead of acting as the guardian of the Spanish language, has turned its back on literature.

23 Most characters in Lights of Bohemia are esperpentisised by appearing physically untidy and acting egotistically. Similarly, Strindberg degrades his characters to present them in a deforming light that makes them seem ridiculous and inconsequential. At the end of The Ghost Sonata, both the Colonel and Hummel are unmasked and their true identities are revealed. In the case of the Colonel, he is asked to remove his wig and moustache so that he appears as his real self. Moreover, many other characters are degraded in several ways. For example, when Johansson speaks inaudibly (261), he is degraded to the point that his speech is branded irrelevant. Likewise, the Mummy speaks like a baby (266), causing her speech to be perceived as inconsequential. When Arkenholz asks if Hummel is insane (262), the former censures the latter. Very interestingly, both Valle-Inclán and Strindberg make use of plural characters. In Lights of Bohemia, the young Modernist poets speak in unison in one meaningless voice. There are in this play beggars who contribute to the degraded picture of society. There are also beggars in The Ghost Sonata, who are included to the same effect.

24 The animalisation of characters is an important part of the de-humanising irony of the esperpento. Characters are referred to as animals in order to denounce their base human qualities. When the secretary of state asks the receptionist to arrange for a car to drive Max home, the poet declines the invitation: “Seguramente que me espera en la puerta mi perro” (129) (I believe my dog may be waiting for me at the entrance); the receptionist reports there is a man waiting, and Max claims, “Don Latino de Hispalis: mi perro” (129) (Don Latino de Hispalis—my dog). Max also refers to Don Latino as “cerdo hispalense” (147) (Sevillian swine) and an “ilustre camello” (134) (illustrious camel); Don Latino compares Rubén Darío to “un cerdo triste” (132) (an unhappy swine).

25 Strindberg also makes extensive use of animalisation in order to demean his characters, and animalisation is frequent in The Ghost Sonata. The Colonel and his inner circle of relatives and friends, the upper class who act as social leaders and models, are ghosts that epitomise their dead society. As pointed out above, they are further referred to as “rats in the attic” (265). The dramatis personae includes “The Mummy, the Colonel’s wife”. With the Mummy, Strindberg hyperbolically deforms a character to make her appear as a deformation of herself, who wanders around the stage mumbling. The Mummy may be regarded as the most deformed character in The Ghost Sonata. She is animalised as she speaks “like a parrot” (266). “Pretty Polly! Is Jacob there? Currrrre” (266) the Mummy says, and Begtsson explains to Johansson, “She thinks she is a parrot. Maybe she is…” (266). She afterwards is compared to a “loquacious bird” (266) and “a parrot” (268). Hummel is called “a vampire” on two occasions, by Begtsson (275) and by the Young Lady (280); Hummel himself admits to his animal instincts when he claims, “once I’ve got my teeth into something, I can’t let go…” (269). The consistent animalisation of many characters is perhaps the most Strindbergian feature of the esperpento. By comparing characters to the animals and monsters they resemble in the way they speak or behave, reality is deformed and degraded in order to humiliate humans and expose their lowest instincts and cravings.

26 In Lights of Bohemia, any one version of reality is given alongside a contrasting version of it; as such, pain is usually contrasted with cold indifference. This is the third characteristic of the esperpento. For example, the pain of the mother whose child has accidentally been shot by the police in the riots is contrasted with the cold and unsympathetic attitude of other characters (154-155)—the pawnbroker says the mother is insane, and he only regrets that the mob has broken his shop window; the tavern owner claims that such accidents are inevitable when restoring civil order; and all other characters advise the mother she should restrain herself from expressing her pain. The same contrast occurs in scene XIII, during Max’s funeral, when his wife and daughter mourn and the rest of the characters engage in a discussion on whether he is actually dead or is under the effects of an episode of catalepsy, as Basilio Soulinake, a German student of medicine, pompously suggests. Soulinake’s seriousness contrasts grotesquely with the desperation of Max’s relatives and with the incredulity of the other characters. The dispute is resolved in a most grotesque manner, when the coach driver lights a match and puts it against Max’s finger to certify he is truly dead. Max’s daughter then exclaims, “¡Mi padre! ¡Mi padre! ¡Mi padre querido!” (182) (My father! My father! My dear father!).

27 Likewise in The Ghost Sonata, the reader/audience is presented with alternative views of reality. I have cited above Arkenholz’s realisation that reality can be perceived and portrayed in two differing ways. Arkenholz’s grief when he remembers his deceased father is contrasted with Hummel’s version of his professional relationship with Arkenholz’s father: “I suppose they say I ruined your father?—people who’ve ruined themselves with idiotic speculations always put their ruin down to the one person they couldn’t fool … The fact is, your father swindled me out of 17,000 crowns, all my savings at the time” (254). The changing demeanour of the Mummy also creates many contrasts. Begtsson explains that Amalia turned into a Mummy because “when a house gets old, it goes mouldy, and when people spend years tormenting each other, they go crazy. This little lady now… this mummy’s been sitting here for forty years—same husband, same furniture, same relations, same friends…” (266); immediately after that, Begtsson points to a statue and tells Johansson, “Look at that statue… that’s her when she was young” (266) thus establishing a poignant contrast between the young Amalia and the distortion of herself as the Mummy. The Mummy behaves in the most grotesque way, speaking in different voices, often like a parrot. On one occasion, she appears out of the blue and pulls the wig from the Old Man, saying like a parrot “Currrrr-e! Is it Currrrre?” (268); after the Old Man has reacted in shock, the Mummy says, “in a normal way”, “Is it Jacob?” (268) and then reveals that she is Amalia.

28 In both Lights of Bohemia and The Ghost Sonata, there is a prevailing contrast between appearances (i.e., the obvious external reality) and a deformation of these appearances. It has been said repeatedly that Lights of Bohemia is a satire of Spanish society and particularly of the social instability accentuated in the Restoration crisis that lead to the Second Republic and the Civil War. However, social criticism is not at all exclusive to Spanish literature. The moral maladies of Spanish society are roughly the same (although in varying degrees) as those of Scandinavian countries as these were often denounced by, for instance, Ibsen or Strindberg—people wear masks with which they conceal their animal instincts and selfishness, masks which help them appear respectable. This is the main criticism of all those who oppress Max and of those Spanish institutions, like the government or the Royal Academy, that boast of a respectability that they do not, in fact, possess. In The Ghost Sonata, this criticism is launched against merchants like Hummel (and Arkenholz’s father) or against the most respected layers of society, as personified by the Colonel and by Baron Skanskorg. Hummel personifies the contradictions of society by acting philanthropically with Arkenholz but not being able to inhibit his cruel instincts, as he tells the Mummy, “No, it was your husband’s fault for taking my fiancée away from me!—It’s not in my own nature to forgive before I’ve punished—I regarded it as a duty… I still do!” (269). Furthermore, both Lights of Bohemia and The Ghost Sonata denounce the ephemeral nature of life and happiness. Strindberg and Valle-Inclán impregnate their plays with the ubiquitous presence of death. Early in Lights of Bohemia, Max suggests to his wife that they should commit suicide and embark on an eternal journey. Max, old and exhausted, penniless and with no resources to support his family, is patently destined to die, and death becomes the only possible way out of his sorrowful existence. Arkenholz has defied death in the accident and becomes a hero celebrated in the newspapers; however, at the end of the play, death takes the Young Lady and deprives him of happiness. Although he was in a position to achieve happiness, since he was acclaimed as a hero and would profit from Hummel’s help, he lives resigned to a profound sense of desperation; as he weeps he says, “When there is no hope, nothing remains but despair” (259). In Strindberg’s play, the elderly characters act under the conviction that death is in close proximity. Hummel means to do a good deed and thus favours Arkenholz. The Mummy says in desperation, “Oh God if we could die. If we could only die” (270). In both plays the characters struggle to live in a cruel and miserable society, confronting an imminent death. Happiness seems unreachable and money alone has the power to grant a certain peace of mind. In Lights of Bohemia, the lottery ticket wins a prize only after Max’s death; in the Swedish play, Arkenholz implies that money is a conditio sine qua non to live happily— “Fancy having an apartment there, on the fourth floor, a beautiful young wife, two pretty little children, and a private income of 20,000 a year” (255).

29 The esperpento adopts a tragicomic tone, where scathing humour often degrades the tragic situations that the characters have to confront. This is the fourth characteristic of the esperpento. Commenting on Don Filiberto’s black humour, Don Latino claims that by means of humour “los españoles nos consolamos del hambre y de los malos governantes” (111) (Spaniards find solace from hunger and from bad politicians). The character known as the King of Portugal provides an example of sad black humour in Lights of Bohemia; he explains, “Consideren ustedes que [Pisa Bien] me llama Rey de Portugal para significar que no valgo un chavo! Argumentos de esta golfa desde que fue a Lisboa y se ha enterado del valor de la moneda” (66) (You must know that she [Pisa Bien] calls me the King of Portugal meaning that I am not worth a penny. This is something this bitch has been saying ever since she visited Lisbon and found out about the value of the Portuguese currency). His girlfriend’s joke, which he finds very offensive, is a superb example of esperpentic humour. She distorts reality by conferring upon him an ennobling nickname—for it refers to the aristocracy—, which is actually humiliating. Humour in The Ghost Sonata often contrasts with the tragic tone that pervades throughout the text. The absurdity of the Mummy, rambling about the stage pretending to be a parrot, and the de-humanisation of many characters, such as the Colonel and Baron Skanskorg, cause the play to acquire a tragicomic tone that becomes one of its main features. This complex mixture of painful desperation and pathetic jokes is the one feature that sets the same tone in Lights of Bohemia and The Ghost Sonata.

30 The fifth characteristic of the esperpento, its use of a very sophisticated vocabulary, can also be perceived in the stage directions (which is the sixth characteristic). Valle-Inclán’s style had evolved from pure symbolism. His poetic virtuosity is still very much present in Lights of Bohemia, but it is combined with a large variety of registers, ranging from colloquialisms to Madrid talk and gypsy slang, to which he adds numerous Latin expressions and quotes from contemporary and classical authors. The result is a text written in a rich style, where the reader will find the most poetic words mingling with colloquialisms and vulgarisms. Strindberg was a prolific and experienced writer. The Ghost Sonata presented him with the difficulty of conveying with words the anguish of humans facing the harsh reality of life and society. The language in The Ghost Sonata is also varied and effectively employed to integrate words into all the elements of the performance. In Michael Robinson’s words, “especially in A Dream Play and The Ghost Sonata, Strindberg creates a true poetry of the theatre out of a combination of gestures, sounds, visual images, music, light, and spoken words”. [35] The gentle use of language in The Ghost Sonata also creates a poetic tone. For example, when Hummel tells Arkenholz about the Young Lady, “look now, up there on the balcony, the maid’s hoisting the flag to half-mast for the Consul… Do you see that blue quilt?— That was meant for two to sleep under, now it’s for one… (The Young Lady, who has changed her clothes, is now seen watering the hyacinths in the window) There’s my little girl, look at her, look!—She’s talking to the flowers. Isn’t she like a blue hyacinth herself?... She’s giving them a drink, only pure water, which they transform into colours and fragrance” (260). Another example of poetic style is provided by Arkenholz when he ponders about the fragrance of the hyacinths (278).

31 Fast dialogues, made of very short sentences, are the last characteristic of the esperpento. More often than not, dialogues in The Ghost Sonata include long interventions; yet there are many instances of fast dialogue, particularly in passages where reality is deformed and irony used. An example can be seen in one of the conversations between Arkenholz and the Young Lady:

32

Student. Why does Bengtsson have a medal?
Young Lady. Because of his great merits.
Student. Has he no faults?
Young Lady. Yes, big ones, but you don’t get a medal for them.
They smile.
Student. You have many secrets in this house…
Young lady. Like everyone else… let us keep ours!
Pause.
Student. Do you love frankness?
Young Lady. Yes, in moderation (283).

33 In sum, all of the features of the esperpento had been used coherently more than a decade before Lights of Bohemia in The Ghost Sonata, where Strindberg sought to project the same pessimistic view of humanity and society, with special emphasis on death, appearances and the immorality of social classes. Most importantly, Strindberg distorts reality in order to unmask appearances and to paint society in a grotesque light. Like in Lights of Bohemia, mirrors are used in The Ghost Sonata to reflect the emptiness of life and society. Anyone who has critically and attentively read Lights of Bohemia will perceive in The Ghost Sonata the very same esperpentic tone used to treat the same existential and social themes. Valle-Inclán excelled in his satirical and ironic take on society with an extraordinarily rich style that remains unique in Spanish literature. The esperpento, however, cannot be regarded as an original innovation since the same distortion of reality technique had been conceived and used coherently in The Ghost Sonata. Strindberg therefore deserves to be acknowledged as the forerunner of the esperpento, and The Ghost Sonata as the first example of this theatrical mode. [36]