Abstract
This essay’s objective is to describe the characteristics of nationalism which appear in Angelina (1893), Rafael Delgado’s second novel. In order to expand on this subject the author relies mainly on some of Ignacio Manuel Altamirano’s considerations regarding the creation of a national literature, which took place in the late 19th Century. Furthermore, the author tries to cast light on the opposition between this tendency and Modernism, starting from the fact that representatives of both shared the same context and must have faced the same problems. This is how the confluence of nationalist and modernist traits in a single work can be understood, and explained from the confusing literary panorama at the end of the Century. Lastly, the author focuses on the structure of Angelina, which seems to be a memoir rather than a novel, with abundant autobiographic contents. A double didactic intention can be derived from there: the first being the desire to show possible young readers how life was thirty years before, and the second expressing the continuos recommendations on how to lead a life which benefited society.
