La corte de los milagros

El ruedo ibérico #1

by Ramón María del Valle-Inclán

El tema de la España isabelina apasionaba a Valle, quien ya lo había tratado con anterioridad en Farsa y licencia de la reina castiza. En los últimos años del reinado de Fernando VII el absolutismo va mitigando su rigor, mientras que en la corte se va formando una vasta intriga alrededor del hermano del monarca, que continúa con la subida al trono de Isabel II tras la derogación de la Ley Sálica. Todo su reinado será una serie ininterrumpida de conspiraciones, tramas y revueltas. Dentro de la caricatura de lo que ya de por sí era una realidad esperpéntica, Valle acierta a utilizar todos los tópicos vigentes, todos los lemas de los partidos, y a componer un mosaico de personajes reales e inventados, a través de la historia de la familia Torre-Mellada, en la que no faltan milagros palaciegos ni monjas estigmatizadas.

Genres: Spanish Literature

242 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1927

About the author

Ramón del Valle-Inclán was born into an impoverished aristocratic family in a rural village in Galicia, Spain. Obedient to his father’s wishes, he studied law in Compostela, but after his father’s death in 1889 he moved to Madrid to work as a journalist and critic. In 1892 Valle-Inclán traveled to Mexico, where he remained for more than a year. His first book of stories came out in Spain in 1895. A well-known figure in the cafés of Madrid, famous for his spindly frame, cutting wit, long hair, longer beard, black cape, and single arm (the other having been lost after a fight with a critic), Valle-Inclán was celebrated as the author of Sonatas: The Memoirs of the Marquis of Bradomín, which was published in 1904 and is considered the finest novel of Spanish modernismo, as well as for his extensive and important career in the theater, not only as a major twentieth-century playwright but also as a director and actor. He reported from the western front during World War I, and after the war he developed an unsettling new style that he dubbed esperpento—a Spanish word that means both a grotesque, frightening person and a piece of nonsense—and described as a search for “the comic side of the tragedy of life.” Partly inspired by his second visit to Mexico in 1920, when the country was in the throes of revolution, Tyrant Banderas is Valle-Inclán’s greatest novel and the essence of esperpento.

Reviews

[Javier Avilés · Rating 5 out of 5]

Obra maestra. En todos los sentidos: lenguaje, estructura, técnica, propósito histórico-social, protagonismo coral. Representa la vanguardia literaria y es una absoluta obra moderna que parece que todo el mundo ha olvidado.
Por favor, olvidad a todos esos escritores contemporáneos que parecen-dicen haber descubierto la narrativa moderna. Todos esos que forman una camarilla de los que Valle haría burla y escarnio.

[Francisco · Rating 2 out of 5]

Como autor de novelas, Valle-Inclán no es de mis favoritos. Abrupta, mal trabada, deslabazada y sin un plan.