Inclusion and exclusion: criteria for periodization of the Spanish American modernist novel

Abstract

The article explores the challenges of defining and establishing a periodization for the Hispanic American modernist novel, arguing that traditional historiographic criteria—whether generational, aesthetic, geographic or stylistic—have contributed to conceptual ambiguity and an overly broad classification of the corpus. Using a methodology focused on the immanent features of the texts, the author proposes five criteria that allow for a more precise delineation of the modernist novel: date of writing, configuration of geographic space, narrative structure, the presence of antagonistic or contradictory behaviors within characters, and the depiction of sexual or intersexual relations deemed anomalous within the social norms of the period. The analysis situates the genre between 1882 and 1902 and highlights emblematic novels such as Por donde se sube al cielo, Amistad funesta, De sobremesa, Ídolos rotos and Sangre patricia, which combine formal innovation with emotional, moral and cultural tensions characteristic of the late nineteenth century. The study demonstrates that these works feature fragmentation, nonlinearity, transatlantic spatial shifts and bipolar characters, as well as transgressive sexual representations—elements that foreshadow narrative strategies later associated with the Latin American boom. Overall, the article maintains that the modernist novel can only be rigorously defined by analyzing its internal structures and textual dynamics rather than relying on external classificatory systems that have obscured its nature.