Benjamin Jarnes, the author of El profesor inutil, is one of the more renowned experimental novelists of the Spanish vanguard of the 1920's. This thesis not only examines his place within the vanguard but also, through the analysis of his novel El profesor inutil demonstrates that his novels are a continuation of the narrative experimentation initiated by the Generation of 98 and the Modernists. El profesor inutil is both the first and last novel that Jarnes wrote, the first version having been published in 1926, the second in 1934. I have used the 1934 edition because it is an expanded version of the original and a more mature work. Jarnes' novels have been characterized as being about nothing but, as I show in this thesis, his novels, specifically El profesor inutil is about something: it is about itself, about art and the art of novel writing. It is essentially a metafictional work. There are many overt references to the art of the novel, of narration, but it is the covert ones that demonstrate his novelistic talent. Through retelling, reconfiguring and parodying mythic and literary stories and characters, the narrator constantly reminds the reader of the artificial nature of fiction. It is not meant to be a faithful reflection of external reality; rather it creates a reality in its own right. The novel also plays with a highly intellectualized form of eroticism, trading in the art of deferment, always postponing the climax. Through the seductive play between the narrator and various women, the relationship between the reader and the text is explored. As a work of fiction, it must seduce the reader into reading it, and this is accomplished through the seductive art of narration. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:uottawa.ca/oai:ruor.uottawa.ca:10393/6899 |
| Date | January 1993 |
| Creators | Boland, Julie. |
| Contributors | Dennis, Nigel, |
| Publisher | University of Ottawa (Canada) |
| Source Sets | Université d’Ottawa |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 94 p. |
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