Nuevo mundo by Miguel de Unamuno and Declaracion de un vencido by Alejandro Sawa: Two Modernist Novels

The article aims to establish an aesthetic relation between Nuevo Mundo (1895-1896) by Miguel de Unamuno and Declaracion de un vencido (1887) by Alejandro Sawa. So as to compare the texts, a strategy of analysis is proposed, taking into account three criteria: the argument, the enunciation and the concept of the protagonist in the two novels. In parallel, a model of the modernist novel is established, resulting from the confrontation of Spanish prose fiction with the European and, to a lesser extent, Latin American modernist novel. The adopted method allows to confirm that both texts tell a story of a frustrated artist (decadent hero) and turn to a narrative perspective deliberately directed towards the inside of the protagonist. Relying on characters that combine the condition of the writer with journalistic activity, both Sawa and Unamuno depict a search for the basis of the position of the artist/intellectual in a changing and chaotic reality ruled by the laws of the market, a search which may be found in many European and Spanish modernist novels.