SOURCE: Pao, Maria T. “Coming to His Senses: Physical Gratification in ‘La Nochebuena de 1836’ and Two Texts of the Spanish Avant-Garde.” Letras Peninsulares 10, nos. 2-3 (fall-winter 1997-98): 415-36.

In the following essay, Pao examines the role of physical gratification and excess in Larra's essay “La Nochebuena de 1836” and the influence of that work on two twentieth-century avant-garde texts.

For writers in Madrid after 1915 and through the 1920s, the place to be on Saturday nights where one could be assured of witty exchanges and general merriment was the tertulia at Ramón Gómez de la Serna's “Sagrada Cripta de Pombo.” The list of attendees included entrenched members of the cultural establishment as well as initiates; Ortega y Gasset, Azorin and Valle-Inclán were known to appear, along with Lorca, Buñuel and the painter Maruja Mallo. From time to time “banquetes literarios” were held in honor of admired...