IN this article I hope to show that the bagatela of Valle-InclAn, which he mentions in the Sonata de invierno and Luces de Bohemia, is an iconoclastic method whose purpose is to destroy the traditional values of Spain. I also hope to show that the bagatela accounts for the apparently meaningless actions of Bradomin and the sacrileges of such works as La ldmpara maravillosa, Flor de santidad, and Sonata de estio. The bagatela, in the hands of Valle-Inclan, is an artistic disvaluation of all values.1 Generally speaking, the word bagatela denotes something superficial, something unimportant, something to be ignored-a bagatela need not concern us. In the Sonatas of Valle-Inclan, however, and in other of his works, the bagatela is just the opposite of what that word usually implies. The bagatela valleinclanesca is not superficial, it is not unimportant, and it cannot be ignored; indeed, if the reader ignored it, he would have to be as dispassionate as a stone. The bagatela of Valle-Inclan concerns the traditional values of Spain, the chief of which pertain to the Christian religion. The culto de latria, which the dictionary of the Royal Academy defines as "el que se da a Dios en reconocimiento de su grandeza," is a traditional value. The culto de hiperdulia, which the same dictionary defines as "el que se da a la Santisima Virgen por su eminente