« La dulce tristeza del arte »

Abstract

Suffering is one of those intensely ineffable emotions touched on by the art of Leopoldo Alas Clarín: the poetry of pain emerging in his literary and critical works is fuelled by ontological and metaphysical reflection; it takes material form as a realistic portrayal and is founded on a theory of aesthetic effect. In his defence of an intimate mimesis, Clarín draws attention to what distinguishes realistic art from philosophical pessimism. An examination of his deep interest in Schopenhauer and the ironical portrayal of his philosophical theses reveals Clarín’s rejection of a system that destroys the ideal. What literary pessimism seeks is to portray the creaturalbeing: this raises universal, everyday realism to the sphere of the serious and the sublime; and as such, Clarín’s aesthetic straddles the dividing line between art and metaphysics. That implies an ethical choice born of the artist’s engagement with el dolor metafísico and the capacity of his work to elicit a transcendent feeling of empathy closely linked to aesthetic pleasure.

Keywords

• Aesthetic
• Leopoldo Alas Clarín
• Literature
• Pessimism
• Realism
• Sadness