Entre autobiografía y reminiscencias generacionales: la representación del conflicto espiritual en El cura de Monleón de Pío Baroja

El cura de Monleón was published for the first time in 1936 as part of the trilogy entitled La juventud perdida. The main character of the novel is a young priest with several doubts regarding his real vocation. Javier Olaran’s personal troubles, however, does not represent the only motif of contrast within the novel. The author, in fact, uses the character to reflect his own personality and thoughts. In this way, he generates a new and more complex idea of ‘conflict’ which involves on the one hand Baroja’s desire to discover the real meaning of Christianity and, on the other one, the necessity to accept the rules imposed by a Generation inspired by the precepts of Modernism. The main purpose of this article is to analyze these perspectives through a detailed reading of the text, in order to provide a new focus for a novel which has been neglected for a long time.