This article presents and confronts two views concerning the link between modernity and
romanticism. On the one hand, the view proposed by the Nobel Prize winner, the Mexican
Octavio Paz in his book Los hijos del limo. Del romanticismo a la vanguardia, and, on the other
hand, the one put forward by the prolific Spanish writer Rafael Argullol in his El Héroe y el
Único. El espíritu trágico del romanticismo. While for O. Paz the romantic movement as a child
of modernity has inspired partially the modern search for the new in itself, for R. Argullol the
romantic spirit is expression above all of a tragic-heroic mood of dissatisfaction with modernity.
Both writers see the paradoxical nature of romanticism –sometimes longing for the past,
sometimes dreaming about the future– as a complex expression of modernity’s self-awareness
and self-criticism.

This article presents and confronts two views concerning the link between modernity and
romanticism. On the one hand, the view proposed by the Nobel Prize winner, the Mexican
Octavio Paz in his book Los hijos del limo. Del romanticismo a la vanguardia, and, on the other
hand, the one put forward by the prolific Spanish writer Rafael Argullol in his El Héroe y el
Único. El espíritu trágico del romanticismo. While for O. Paz the romantic movement as a child
of modernity has inspired partially the modern search for the new in itself, for R. Argullol the
romantic spirit is expression above all of a tragic-heroic mood of dissatisfaction with modernity.
Both writers see the paradoxical nature of romanticism –sometimes longing for the past,
sometimes dreaming about the future– as a complex expression of modernity’s self-awareness
and self-criticism.