Although a writer of poems, essays, short stories, plays, and novels, Ramón del Valle-Inclán is most renowned as the prose stylist of the "Generation of '98" whose works most clearly approach the modernist mode. For him there was no clear demarcation between prose and poetry, so his earlier critics argued about whether he should be classified as a modernist or as one of the members of the Generation of '98, who analyzed and dissected Spain's internal problems in their writings. Though these writers also experimented with aesthetics, they were more motivated to inspire a national consciousness. Because Valle-Inclán exhibited both characteristics in his writings, recent criticism has placed him within both literary camps. With his considerable emphasis on poetic style, it is ironic that only a few collections of poetry appear in his long list of credits. However, these works fit both...