When Mistral was writing "Fear" in the 1920s the Modernism movement that influenced artistic theory across the world was settling into maturity. Literary theorists use the term "modernism" to describe a wide variety of changes that came about at the beginning of the twentieth century. It is generally used to explain the backlash against literary tradition, a reaction caused by the way psychoanalysis changed the understanding of personal behavior and that Marxism changed the way that social behavior was understood. In poetry, Modernism entailed casting away traditional forms and concepts of beauty and using words that were concerned with evoking an emotional impression over those that had a beautiful sound together. Many strains of modernism, such as surrealism, imagism, and dadaism, were more concerned with striking readers with a powerful feeling than with overall logic.

In Latin American countries, literary trends generally followed European trends at...