Nietzsches Dionysos im Kampf gegen Apoll und das Christentum in Valle-Incláns <I>Rosa de Saulo</I>

Abstract

Although Valle-Inclán’s work is incontrovertibly considered to be of great importance among the Generación del 98, his poetry has only been subject to literary studies on a minor scale. This article tries to decipher the complex semantic matrix of the sonnet Rosa de Saulo by making use of the Nietzschean opposition Apollonian/Dionysian. By doing that, it becomes clear that Rosa de Saulo has wide-ranging religious and mythological implications and is therefore to a high degree intertextual. It takes its place both among other works of Valle-Inclán such as Aromas de Leyenda or Luces the bohemia and among the canon of Spanish literature and art (e.g. Cervantes, Quevedo, Goya). Furthermore, by using Nietzsche’s artistic opposition as a means of analysing literature, the grotesque character of the sonnet becomes evident.