20th Century Spanish Literature: Movements and Key Authors

Posted on Sep 26, 2024 in Latin

20th Century Spanish Literature

Movements and Key Authors

Avant-Garde or Experimental (Blanca Andreu)

Cultural, Classical, and Baroque (Gimferrer, Antonio Colinas, L.A. Basin, L.A. de Villena)

Minimalism and Conceptualism (Jaime Siles)

Inspired by pure poetry, seeking conceptual essence in short, dense poems.

Other Trends: Neo-Modernism, Neo-Romanticism, Intimate New Epic (Julio Llamazares)

The Poetry of Experience

The most significant current in young Spanish poetry. It departs from the Last Things and reunites with the poets of the ’60s, such as Gil de Viedma, Brines, or Rodriguez. The salient features of this poetry are its urban character, realistic subject matter, conversational tone, and an expression of disappointment and a critical tone. Authors: Luis García Montero, Andrés Trapiello, and Jon Juaristi.

1. Essays in the 18th Century: G.M. de Jovellanos

1. Historical and Cultural Context of the 18th Century: The Enlightenment

The Spain of the 18th Century

Established in 1700 with Philip of Anjou, a new dynasty (the Bourbons) facilitated the entry of enlightened ideas.

The Enlightenment

A cultural movement and critical research based on replacing the concepts of authority and hierarchy with equality and free criticism, all guided by reason. The novelty is giving them a secular nature, separating church and state. The Encyclopedia of Diderot and d’Alembert permeated this entire secular Europe, establishing enlightened despotism: “everything for the people but without the people.”

The Enlightenment in Spain

It was slow, timid, and tardy. It encouraged the study of science and the arts, renewed the educational system, and fostered critical analysis of the Spanish situation. It created the National Library, the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), the Royal Academy of History (RAH), etc. The didactic nature of all these institutions explains the predominant genre, which is the essay.

2. The Essay

A literary prose genre, agile and concise, accurately exposing a personal opinion on an issue with an informative intention.

Origin

It comes from the famous Essais de Montaigne, where he voiced his opinions, thoughts, and views on many subjects.

Features

  • Precision and clarity
  • Didactic and informative
  • Variable extension
  • Comprehensiveness of coverage
  • Asystematic development
  • Open structure
  • Creative criticism
  • Subjectivity
  • Aesthetic intentionality
  • Explanatory and argumentative work

3. Essays in the 18th Century: Feijoo, Cadalso, and Jovellanos

At the beginning of the century, the term “essay” began to emerge as a literary genre whose intent is the survey and research on various topics. With the enlightened Spanish essays, the new European culture and customs were disclosed, and they attempted to criticize and propose government actions. The style was Neoclassical (clarity and simplicity).

Feijoo

He put every effort into popularizing the achievements of European culture and destroying errors and deceptions resulting from general ignorance. His goal was to eliminate superstition, false beliefs, and common mistakes. Work: 8 volumes of Universal Critical Theater and 5 Learned Cards. His style is characterized by simplicity and naturalness.

Cadalso

Author of plays and poetry, he is valued above all for his prose works, which innovate with different models of European literature of the period. Work: Moroccan Letters, Lugubrious Night.

Moroccan Letters: 90 letters in which correspondence is exchanged between Gazel (a Moroccan who travels through Spain), Ben Beley (the recipient), and Nuno (Gazel’s guide). Reality is viewed from different angles; Spain is seen from different perspectives, so there is criticism of the country’s situation.

Jovellanos

Born in Gijon, into a noble but poor family. His greatest intellectual and political activity took place during the reign of Charles III. With the Napoleonic invasion, he rejected the post offered by Joseph I and became part of the opposition to this occupation. His honesty and reformist ideas clashed again and again against the misunderstanding and intolerance of many conservatives. Work: The Report on the Agrarian Law studies Spanish agricultural backwardness and proposes solutions such as irrigation or confiscation (based on the principles of economic liberalism). In Memory on Public Entertainment, he studies the history and customs of different games and proposes reforms. He defends neoclassical theater as a way to educate the public. In Report on Public Education, he exposes advanced pedagogical ideas. For him, education is the foundation of economic prosperity and individual happiness, so it must be extended to the entire population through a national system of education guaranteed by the state. He proposes the integration of theoretical knowledge with vocational training (which he applied in his institute in Gijon with great success). He is also a playwright and prose writer.

2. Realism: The Narrative of Innovation in the Second Half of the 19th Century. Benito Pérez Galdós

1. Realism

In literature, the word “realism” applies to all those works true to life. But quintessential realism applies to writers of the 2nd half of the 19th century, fleeing romantic melodrama and seeking to objectively reflect reality: society, politics, culture, etc. Realism developed in Europe at the time that the bourgeoisie took power and became more conservative. The authors reflected this bourgeois society, the defeat of the individual against the dominant schemes, and the marginalization of those who resisted accepting it. The novel appeared to be the genre most able to describe social reality as experienced by a great quantitative and qualitative development.

The realist novel found its way into France with Balzac and Stendhal in the 1830s and 1840s and triumphed in Europe in the 2nd half of the century. In Spain, it began with the revolution of 1868 (La Fontana de Oro is Galdós’ first realist novel) and reached its fullness in the 1880s (The Judge’s Wife, Fortunata and Jacinta). There is also some naturalist influence, but more attenuated than in France. Authors: Juan Valera, José María Pereda, Benito Pérez Galdós, Leopoldo Alas “Clarín”, Emilia Pardo Bazán, and Vicente Blasco Ibáñez (the last two are considered naturalists).

2. Features of the Realistic Novel

Observation of Reality

Spanish bourgeois society is the central theme and inspiration of the authors. The focus is on urban life. These novels avoid talking about conflicts of the working class or peasantry. The bourgeois and their circumstances are the stars. All this is the result of rigorous, objective, and straightforward observation.

Aesthetic Requirements

They are very stringent. The authors toiled in the development of literary technique and style debugging. The style is sober and simple, the result of an intensive cleanup effort.

Narrator and Narrative

An omniscient narrator who knows the characters perfectly, even their intimate truths, and takes the liberty to judge their actions. The story is in the 3rd person, interspersed with dialogues in direct style, which is the characteristic formula of Realism. The monologue is also used, with which the character analyzes and reveals their innermost thoughts.

Descriptions

They occupy a prominent place in the realistic novel in their quest to faithfully reproduce reality. Some reach a level of heaviness and occupy entire pages. Galdós often described by non-large selection, with the help of some isolated data, turning it into an almost impressionistic technique.

Characters

They consist of a series of rounded characters, with a more or less complex psychology, evolving according to circumstances. The novel revolves around a protagonist in conflict between personal aspirations and social norms. From this collision, the protagonist is usually defeated. In addition, there is often a cast of great supporting characters.

Language

A true reflection of everyday reality. Two ways: 1. The narrator’s voice: a cultivated, careful, sometimes rhetorical style. 2. The speech of the characters: fits their sociocultural level. Galdós is considered a master in playing with this.

3. Benito Pérez Galdós (1843-1920)

Life

Born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. He began studying law but did not finish. Literature was his full-time occupation and livelihood. Progressive ideology, but discreet political commitment harmed him as a writer. He was elected to the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) and, years later, the most conservative sectors boycotted his candidacy for the Nobel Prize.

Work

Episodios Nacionales, an extensive fictionalized account of the reconstruction of Spain from Trafalgar to the Restoration. There are 46 novels grouped into 5 sets of 10 volumes, except the last, which has 6. They constitute a comprehensive and documented reconstruction of the turbulent history of 19th-century Spain. Galdós clearly takes a patriotic stance in telling the Napoleonic invasion; then, in his account of the confrontation between the two Spains, he adopts a progressive attitude.

First Novels or Thesis Period (1870s): The Golden Fountain, Doña Perfecta, La familia de León Roch. All deal with the ideological confrontation of Spain at the time. The characters are divided between liberal and progressive, with Galdós taking the side of the former.

Contemporary Novels (1880s): They constitute a large portrait of Spanish society in which all social classes appear, but with particular care in the middle classes. The author is more mature in using realistic techniques and, therefore, more objective. The Disinherited, Torment, Miau, Fortunata and Jacinta.

Spiritual Novels (1890s): Growing interest in moral and religious issues. The Unknown and the Real, Mercy, The Nazarene.

Evaluation

The scope, variety, and enjoyment of all his work give him a prominent place in Spanish and European literature. Galdós is the only 19th-century Spanish writer who can build a comprehensive picture of Spanish society at the time while providing an overall and coherent history of Spain.

3. Modernism and the Generation of ’98

1. Crisis at the End of the Century: Controversy Between Modernism and the Generation of ’98

Historical Context of the End of the Century

By 1900, Spain had 19 million inhabitants, of whom 12 million were illiterate. 80% of the population lived in the countryside. In this backward and impoverished Spain, a climate of demoralization arose among intellectuals and popular criticism against the ineffective policy of the Restoration (chieftaincy, party shift, corruption). The climate of unrest preceded the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines, known as the Disaster of ’98. This date has become a symbol of the beginning of the 20th century in an atmosphere of gloom and decay, but also with the emergence of intellectuals and politicians eager to transform Spain.

The Crisis of the End of the Century: Art Nouveau and the Generation of ’98

All Western culture of the period reflects a sense of pessimism, upset, and disappointment; it is the crisis of European consciousness of the century. Irrationalist theories and the exaltation of feeling flourished. The intellectuals of the time called themselves decadent, but the movement would receive different names depending on the country: the modern term of Latin America would soon come to the peninsula. It is a movement of the body rejecting society and culture, retreating into a new model of art and beauty.

In our country, Modernism and the Generation of ’98 coincided as two literary movements of the turn of the century. Both reflected common cultural and ideological influences and rejected realist literature, preferring subjectivity. The main difference is the international dimension of Modernism, compared to the concerns of the Generation of ’98 about Spain.

2. Modernism

Literary modernism in Latin America was born as a desire to strengthen their culture against the Spanish, led by Rubén Darío, José Martí, Gutiérrez Nájera, and Leopoldo Lugones, affecting especially the lyric. Modernism in Spain began with the publication of Darío’s Profane Prose.

Influence of Modernism

  • From the Romantics: rejection of reality, desire to escape, exaltation of feelings, individualism, and existential issues.
  • French poetry: Parnassianism: sensory perfection of form and brilliance, “art for art’s sake.” It evades reality through the recreation of exotic and distant worlds, where there are fantastic characters. Symbolism: intimate, subjective, and necromantic poetry that aspires to express the author’s feelings and capture the correlation between soul and landscape, suggesting through symbols. Symbolism is very clear in Spanish poetry.

Renewing Modernist Aesthetics of Literature

Topics

The rejection of reality manifests itself in an escapist line, evoking distant worlds, and another intimate one that reveals the poet’s distress and discomfort.

Literary Language

Modernist poetry is very sensory, and musicality and chromaticism resources are achieved through phonics, vocabulary, sensory metaphors, symbols, and synesthesia.

Metrics

Alexandrine, medieval dodecasyllabic, hendecasyllable, meters of 16 or 21 syllables, unpublished poems, free verse. Experiments were done with the distribution of stress.

Spanish Modernist Literature

It was less bright and exotic than the American one. It adds the influence of Reuben, French Symbolism, and late Romanticism (Bécquer and Rosalía). Poets: Salvador Rueda, Manuel Machado, Francisco Villaespesa, and Juan Ramón Jiménez and Antonio Machado in their first stages.

3. Generation of ’98

Spanish writers who, in their youth, expressed their dislike for the Restoration and pointed to the need for changes, but in maturity, took very different paths. Thus, the use of the term “generation” has been discussed, and today they are known as a group. They are Unamuno, Azorín, Baroja, and Maeztu.

Background

Influence of Regenerationism and Krausism: Regenerationism raises the country’s problems and solutions. Joaquín Costa with Oligarchy and Caciques. The reformers wanted to modernize Spain, which lagged behind Europe. Krausism intended to modernize society through education.

Characteristics of the Group of ’98

Trajectory

The group was formed to denounce social and moral decay, backwardness, and conservatism. The members evolved from radical youth attitudes to conservatism (Baroja, Azorín, Maeztu).

Ethical Attitude

Concern for social and cultural problems, which leads them to reflect on Spain.

Theme of Spain

They wanted to understand what Spain is. Unamuno puts it in idealistic terms (for the soul of Castile, its landscape, myths, and origins).

Crisis of the Century

Existential concerns.

Language of ’98

Very careful simplicity. Rejection of rhetoric and casticismo. They pursued personal expression.

Genre

Novel and essay.

4. Spanish Poetry of the Beginning of the Century: Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez

1. Spanish Poetry of the Beginning of the Century

The young Spanish poets of the first generation of our century were influenced by the modernism of Rubén Darío. Modernism would feature the first stage of our two most important poets of the time, Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez. It is a subjective and intimate neo-romantic poetry; the language exploits sensory effects (musicality and color) and explores new poetic rhythms. From the Generation of 1914 or Novecentismo, modernism began to cause fatigue; Juan Ramón Jiménez himself presided over this change.

2. Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

2.1. Life

Born in Seville into a cultured, liberal family. At eight years old, he moved to Madrid, where he studied at the Instituto Escuela. He lived a bohemian youth in the shadow of his brother Manuel, who was more friendly and sociable, and made several trips to Paris. On the death of his father and grandfather, he moved to Soria in 1907 as a French teacher. He married in 1909 with the daughter of his landlady, Leonor Izquierdo, who would die in 1912. Machado moved to Baeza (Jaén) and then to Segovia and Madrid. During the war, he was forced into exile by his republican ideas, dying shortly after crossing the French border in Collioure. In his later years, he lived a new love with the poet Pilar Valderrama, whom he called Guiomar in his works.

2.2. Works

First Stage

Solitudes (1903), enhanced in Solitudes, Galleries and Other Poems (1907). It is a deeply intimate lyric in which the poet conveys his feelings through symbols. They are gloomy and sad poems. The recurrent theme is the passage of time and nostalgia for the past. The style is simple, with light and color, soft musicality, and symbolism. The metric is varied, with flexible forms (Silva) and popular forms (ballads and quatrains) predominating. His preferred form is the assonanced or arromanzada silva (Silva with assonance rhyming in pairs).

Second Stage

The main works of this period are Campos de Castilla (1912) and Complete Poems (1917). Beginning in 1907 with his arrival in Soria, Machado began a less intimate period, where the Sorian landscape takes on a leading role. Features:

  • Identification between the landscape and the poet’s soul.
  • Reflecting on the historic landscape and its inhabitants.

Complete Poems, published in Baeza, would be an extension of Campos de Castilla. This includes the Leonor Cycle, recalling his dead wife, and Andalusian poetry as a theme.

Last Stage

New Songs (1924). Proverbs and Songs. Songs to Guiomar and Poetry of War.

3. Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958)

3.1. Life

He was born in Palos de Moguer (Huelva). In 1900, he traveled to Madrid, where he was greeted by Rubén Darío and Villaespesa as a new modernist poet. The death of his father would produce a depressive crisis. In 1916, he married Zenobia Camprubí. During the war, due to his Republican ideas, he was exiled to America, living from 1951 in Puerto Rico. He received the Nobel Prize in 1956, the same year his wife died. The poet died two years later.

3.2. Work

His work becomes the nexus between the first generation of the century (Modernist and ’98) and the Generation of ’27. Juan Ramón’s poetry seeks beauty through intelligence and aspires to capture the essence of things, not feelings. His poetry is a mode of knowledge of the world and a continuing dialogue with beauty.

The poet himself classifies his work into three periods:

  • Sensory or Modernist Stage (from the beginning until 1915): With works such as Rhymes (1902), Arias Tristes (1903), and Distant Gardens (1904). Intimate symbolism, simplicity, soft musicality, and emotional tone dominated.
  • Intellectual Stage or Pure Poetry (from 1916 to 1936): With a drop in sentimentality and an attempt to capture the essence. For this, the author uses standard language and modern free verse. Thus, while moving in the realm of ideas, it is an abstract and metaphysical lyric. Diary of a Newlywed Poet (1916), in which marine subjects predominate, Eternity (1918), Stone and Sky (1919), Poetry (1917-23), and Beauty (1917-23) stand out. This second period ends with Total Station (1923-1936).
  • Sufficient Phase: Written in exile after 1936, On the Other Side stands out, in which the author expresses the feeling of oneness with nature. In 1949, he published Animal of Desired Background and God Desiring, which culminates the tone of mystical ecstasy, the merger with nature and beauty.

Traditional Poetry and Prose

He wrote varied prose, highlighting the poetic prose of Platero y yo (1914) and the critical prose of Portraits (1930).

3.3. Evaluation

The work of Juan Ramón Jiménez is an aesthetic revolution, being the creator of a new poetic language. His quest for perfection made him always break new ground, becoming the teacher of young poets of the 1920s and others who pursued formal perfection, such as the Novísimos of the 1970s. Later, when times imposed an ethical or social poetry, he was regarded as a poet who was too beautician, dehumanized, and minority.

5. The Spanish Novel Before 1939: Pío Baroja and Unamuno

1. Overview

1.1. The Novel at the Beginning of the Century

The realist and naturalist novel, heir to the narrative of the 19th century, enjoyed a wide audience in the early 20th century, highlighting in particular the work of Blasco Ibáñez. They are the last gasps of Realism.

1.2. Revival of the Novel

With the publication in Spain in 1902 of Azorín’s The Will, Baroja’s The Way of Perfection, Unamuno’s Love and Pedagogy, and Valle-Inclán’s Autumn Sonata, a new era began, away from realism and the start of the 20th century’s new novel.

1.3. The Novel of the Novecento

Ramón Pérez de Ayala, Gabriel Miró. The first cultivated the intellectual and experimental novel (Tigre Juan), while Miró created a novel of deep lyricism.

1.4. The Avant-Garde

In the 1920s, a novel related to the avant-garde was produced, represented by Ramón Gómez de la Serna and Benjamín Jarnés.

1.5. The Novel in the 1930s

The novel of the 1930s tended toward rehumanization and social engagement, highlighting Ramón J. Sender, Francisco Ayala, and Rosa Chacel.

2. Pío Baroja

2.1. Life and Personality

Born in San Sebastián in 1872. In Madrid, he studied medicine and became a doctor, but having little time for it, he gave himself completely to his literary vocation. Baroja was a lonely, embittered man with a pessimistic mood.

2.2. Ideology and Existential Gloom

His work fits perfectly into the line of existential pessimism.

  • Baroja was distinguished for his radical religious skepticism.
  • To Baroja, the world is meaningless. Life to him is absurd.
  • His political ideology is marked by the same skepticism.

2.3. His Conception of the Novel

Most of his novel concept is:

  • The novel is for him “a multiform, protean genre, all-encompassing (open book).
  • A consequence of this is his stated lack of concern for composition, even claiming that a novel can have no plot.
  • Invention, imagination, and observation are for him the supreme qualities of the novelist.
  • Baroja admits that his works “do not want to prove a thesis.”
  • Ultimately, what Baroja called “lack of composition” or “disorganization” are nothing but particular ways of composing and arranging the novel material.

2.4. The Style

Although his ungrammatical errors are obvious, which he attributed to his Basque origin, Azorín said that Baroja had a “great style.”

  • His style is consistent with his ideal of narrative spontaneity.
  • The result is a quick, nervous, and vivid prose.
  • In his style, there is a “sour” tone, which corresponds to his bitterness.
  • Preferences for the short sentence and the brief paragraph.
  • Liveliness and amenity of the story, and special attention to descriptions.
  • Master of conversational authenticity, he is unsurpassed in dialogues.

2.5. His Work: Novels

Thirty-four novels are grouped into trilogies, the most important:

  • The Basque Country, where The Adventurer Zalacaín (1909) stands out.
  • The Great Life, highlighting The Way of Perfection (1902).
  • The Struggle for Life, highlighting The Search (1904).
  • The Tree of Knowledge belongs to The Race.
  • The Sea, where The Concerns of Shanti Andia (1911) stands out.

Baroja also wrote many short stories and novellas, essays, biographies, and even several works in dialogue form. His Memoirs are exciting, published under the general title Since the Last Turn of the Road.

2.6. Significance of Baroja

Baroja is a very representative figure of the sensitivity and the spiritual atmosphere of his generation. He is the quintessential novelist of contemporary Spanish literature, for his gifts as a storyteller, his power, and his testimonial strength.

3. Miguel de Unamuno

3.1. Life and Personality

Born in Bilbao in 1864. He studied philosophy and literature in Madrid, winning in 1891 the professorship of Greek at the University of Salamanca. From 1924 to 1930, he would be exiled for his opposition to the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera. Later, he was a deputy for the Republic. With the military uprising of 1936, he was confined to his home, where he died suddenly.

  • His personality is very strong and torn, always living in constant conflict with himself, never finding peace.
  • His ideological evolution deserves to be clarified. After several youth crises, he lost his faith. He expressed socialist ideas in 1892 and joined the PSOE. A new crisis in 1897 plunged him into the problem of death and nothingness. In his ongoing discussion between faith and unbelief, his agony and anguish speak throughout his work.

3.2. Novels and “Nivolas”

Unamuno is the most determined reformer of the early 20th-century novel.

  • He began, however, with a historical novel about the last Carlist War: Peace in War (1897), a novel that took more than twelve years of preparation. Unamuno said that it was the work of an “oviparous novelist” (the long incubation of creation).
  • But he soon became a “viviparous novelist,” that is, one of fast delivery, who writes what comes out. In this line is Love and Pedagogy (1902). It is a “novel of ideas.”
  • The formal innovations of the work led some critics to say that this was not a novel. So, defiantly, Unamuno subtitled his next work of fiction nivola: Fog (1914), undoubtedly his masterpiece in the genre.
  • Since then, the Unamunian protagonists are “agonists,” men fighting and battling death and the dissolution of their personality. Thus, we have Abel Sánchez (1917) and La Tía Tula (1921).
  • Regarding the technical innovations of his novels, it is worth highlighting the constructive ease typical of this viviparous creation, and the descriptive parsimony.

3.3. Unamuno’s Style

It is the language of an intellectual fighter. A style detached from old rhetoric, although with its own personal rhetoric. Unamuno preferred a naked style in front of the stylists who dress in finery. He prioritized the density of ideas and emotional intensity over elegance. His internal contradictions are reflected in his taste for paradoxes and antitheses.

3.4. San Manuel Bueno, Martyr

This short novel is considered the most characteristic and perfect within the author’s narrative. In his prologue, Unamuno said: “My conscience had put into it my whole tragic sense of everyday life.” For its date (1931), it brings together Unamuno’s old views on problems that had not stopped gripping him.

6. Spanish Drama Before 1939: Valle-Inclán and García Lorca

1. Overview

  • The bourgeois public had undemanding tastes.
  • It was a poor, static theater, anchored in the repetition of the same formulas.
  • With little creative encouragement, some less conforming authors (Unamuno, Azorín, etc.) tried to break this trend, revealing themselves against commercial theater.

1.1. Commercially Successful Theater

The premieres of Reality (1892) by Benito Pérez Galdós, The Alien Nest (1894) by Jacinto Benavente, and Juan José (1895) by Joaquín Dicenta tried to introduce a theater close to that of European naturalism, but the relative success of Galdós and Dicenta did not have continuity. Benavente would be responsible for shaping the new theater, yielding to the demands of the public.

Benaventine Comedy

The failure of The Alien Nest led him to write plays more in tune with public tastes. The Food of Beasts (1898) was his first big hit, and since then, Benavente merely polished the structure of his theater to ensure the acceptance of the spectators and tirelessly repeated the formula. His plots show few conflicting problems. Elegant, natural, and witty dialogue predominates. The scenic spots in which the action takes place allow the classification of his work into four groups:

  • Bourgeois urban interiors, with titles like The Corny (1901).
  • Cosmopolitan interiors, with Saturday Night (1903).
  • Provincial interiors, such as Pepa Doncel (1928).
  • Rural interiors, with The Lady of Love (1908) and The Unloved (1913).

Along with The Unloved, Vested Interests (1907) is his most valued work today. It is original and unclassifiable.

Comedy of Manners

It borrows aspects from the genres known as zarzuela and the sainete, with emphasis on the picturesque environment of certain Spanish regions. It is characterized by the creation of typical characters, by their language, and by vulgarized humor; ideologically, for its conservatism.

  • Carlos Arniches is the best-known author of farces, a specialist in folk customs in Madrid. His most successful farces are The Saint of the Hydra (1898) and The Flower of the District (1919). Since 1916, Arniches attempted a new genre, grotesque tragicomedy, with Mademoiselle de Trévelez (1916).
  • The brothers Serafín and Joaquín Álvarez Quintero wrote in collaboration paintings, sketches, and comedies set in a surreal and topical Andalusia. The most outstanding are The Cain (1908) and Malvaloca (1912).
  • Pedro Muñoz Seca specialized in the astrakhan, a genre that mixes sainete and vaudeville, highlighting his work The Revenge of Don Mendo (1918).
Poetic Drama

It is a type of verse drama characterized by historical themes and ideological conservatism. It nostalgically evokes past events that are considered exemplary for their burden of traditional values. Eduardo Marquina stands out with The Daughters of the Cid (1908) and In Flanders Has Been the Sun (1910), and Francisco Villaespesa with The Castle of Pearls (1911). The brothers Manuel and Antonio Machado wrote jointly in this line La Lola is Going to Ports (1929). Meanwhile, José María Pemán, author of The Divine Impatient (1933), extends beyond the war with this current.

1.2. Refreshing and Marginal Theater

Faced with the drama staged successfully in other scenarios, the so-called innovative theater was concocted, which did not obtain the applause of the audience, reacting against the convention of realistic theater. This theater did not win for two reasons:

  • The creations of the perpetrators were often unrepresentable, a “theater to be read,” as Valle-Inclán’s theater was described by specialists.
  • The audience for these plays, usually young and educated, was a minority.
Theater Around the Generation of ’98
  • Miguel de Unamuno saw drama as the most appropriate tool for presenting the human problems that haunted him. His works Fedra (1911) and Another (1927) stand out.
  • Azorín developed his theatrical vocation, especially critical. His works are based on dialogue, conflict, and lack of statism. His most notable work is The Invisible (1928), and it is a short trilogy about distress before death. Often the appearance of subconscious elements in his compositions, along the lines of Surrealism at the time.
  • Jacinto Grau is characterized by the use of poetic prose and the historical, biblical, and literary tradition. His The Lord of Pygmalion (1921) stands out.
  • Ramón Gómez de la Serna also tried writing plays other than commercial ones.
Theater in the Generation of ’27

.
27 The authors attempted to create a new theater audience closer to the people. The refusal of employers to all kinds of experimentation and limited interest of the public made the most plays is not released.
• Rafael Alberti linked his theater to the guidelines of the work involved, designing the stage as a way to fight for awareness and dissemination of ideals, as in Night of War in the Prado Museum (1956); In other works sense prevails with a strong poetic symbolism as in the galliard (1945).
• Pedro Salinas wrote in exile, among other works, The Sleeping Beauty.
‘Miguel Hernandez writes social melodramas like The farmer of more air (1937).
• Alejandro Casona began his playwriting in 1934 with La Sirena Varada. Then in exile, wrote some famous works that would premiere first outside of Spain as La dama del alba (1944), La barca sin pescador(1945) and Trees die standing (1949).
• Max Aub written after the theater during the war propaganda begins in exile of maturity stage focused on the horrors of war. San Juan (1943), his best drama, reflecting the drift of a ship full of Jewish immigrants fleeing the Nazis .
• Enrique Jardiel Poncela be called to renew the comic theater with works such as Four hearts with brake and reverse (1936).
2. THEATER Valle.
Ramon del Valle Peña was born in Villanueva de Arosa (Pontevedra) in 1866. He began studying law and had to abandon because of family problems. In 1891 began signing his journalistic under the pseudonym of Valle-Inclan. In 1895 he moved to Madrid where he is known for his eccentricities, a few years later married to Josephine White.
He died in Santiago de Compostela on 5 January 1936. The first theater in Valley falls within the modernist, with some idealized and aesthetic works: Cuento de Abril (1910).
Then test other ways: The mythical cycle, with the Comedy barbarian stories that take place in the mythical rural Galicia. The culmination of this cycle is Divinas palabras (1920). The inexhaustible artistic quest led to Valley of decadent modernism to the initial creation of a personal genre:
The scarecrow .- Luces de bohemia Valley With names a literary genre based on the systematic deformation of character and values denouncing contemporary Spanish society. The characters (real or fictional) are grotesques in a grotesque world. The use of contrast (painful, grotesque, tragic-comic …), the richness of language, theatrical stage directions, the many characters and the continuing changes in space and time between the scenes are other formal features of the nonsensical. Tirano Banderas and the Iberian circle other works are grotesque.
3. THEATER LORCA.
Federico García Lorca created the true poetic drama. His dramatic production express in depth the problems of life and history through a language loaded with connotations. Moreover, his plays are becoming increasingly important in other components such as music, dance and art.
1. Early dramas. They are related to modern drama: The Curse of the Butterfly (1919) and Mariana Pineda (1923); The latter is a historical drama in verse where heroin was executed in Granada by embroidering a reign of Ferdinand VII liberal banner.
2. Farces for puppet and people. Lorca is the author of four farces that develop the conflict arising from the marriage between the old and young, among the first we have the Tragicomedy of Don Cristobal and Rosita Password (1923) and Don Cristobal Retablillo. Among the people we have the farce for shoe prodigious (1929) and Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden (1929).
3. Comedy impossible. Under this designation meet three comedies: The public (1933), avant-garde; So spend five years(1931) dealing with the existential drama of a young and untitled comedy, which is known only the first act.
4. Tragedies and dramas. In Lorquian lar tragedies, the argument is of little importance, there are few main characters and involving choirs. They thrive in a rural setting in which natural forces imposed a tragic destiny. They emphasize Blood Wedding (1932), Yerma (1934) and The House of Bernarda Alba (1936).
ITEM 7. IN SPAIN surrealist poetry. THE GENERATION OF 1927: GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS.
Vanguards.
The avant-garde movements, or isms, are artistic experiments that break sharply with previous aesthetic and propose a radically different and original art (Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, expressionism, surrealism). Youth were presented as alternatives breakthrough with a defiant, provocative and minority voluntarily. Appeared as an aesthetic revolution. His greatest achievement was to impose total freedom of the artist.
The European vanguard.
• Futurism. Appears in 1909 when his antiromanticism Marinetti declared in his manifesto with us kill the moonlight! Arbitrary use of typography and syntax.
• literary Cubism. Is after painting, appearing around 1913 by Guillaume Apollinaire. Caligramas with his work. There is in this current accumulation and overlapping images from different perspectives.
• Dadaism. Founded by Tristan Tzara in 1916, claims the world prior to any logical child (playful, spontaneous, fun and imaginative), regardless of social or moral concerns, freeing the imagination and recovering the incoherent speech.
• Surrealism. It involves a new interpretation of human beings, based on the theories of Freud’s subconscious. He trained in Paris, around André Breton. It is necessary to write down everything that arises in the mind without going through the censorship of logic, morality or aesthetics.
The avant-garde in Spain.
In Spain, the avant-garde will be in perfect sync with European literature as proíiferando gatherings Coffee Tombo, and magazines such as The Journal of the West and The Literary Gazette. Within the Spanish avant two distinctive periods:
1. Birth and rise of modernism (1908-25). The first symptoms appear in the hand of Ramon Gomez de la Serna, culminating in this environment by 1918 with the triumph of ultraism and creationism.
2. Surrealism and rehumanization (1926-36), picking up the emotions, angst and rebellion against modern society. From 1930 avant-garde influence declines.
Ramon Gomez de la Serna (1888-1963). It was the pivotal figure of the moment, responding to pure avant-garde model, marginal and provocative (he lectured mounted on an elephant). He directed the magazine Prometeo in which appeared the first avant-garde manifestos. He also wrote stories, novels and avant-garde theater, but more interesting are his Greguerías, defined by him as the amount of humor and metaphor. Examples are The dish is the sun of the orchestra and gulls are born of the handkerchiefs they say goodbye! in ports. The influence Greguerías metaphors of the poets of ’27.
Hispanic isms.
• Creationism. The spread Vicente Huidobro, the Chilean poet who came to Spain in 1918 from Paris. Defend the creative capacity of images, for poetry is creation, and each poem is a world created by juxtaposed images. In the aesthetics of creationism Gerardo Diego wrote the book Picture in 1922.
• The ultraism. It emerged in 1919 with the Manifesto ultraist. His literature is based on the metaphor. Cubist influences mixed ultraism, Dadaists and Futurists. Passed quickly.
• Surrealism. Movement was the most successful and most influential in the generation of ’27. The poems of Juan Larrea were instrumental in the penetration of surrealism. Characteristics of surrealism are imaginative and formal freedom, the breaking of the rules of language (punctuation, consistency …), and especially its footprint is evident in the images.
End of the avant-garde.
In the thirties, leaned toward the avant-garde poetry and human commitment. Notable example of this evolution was Rafael Alberti, who put his poetry to serve their political ideas. War and exile have accentuated the trend of social ethics or poetry.
GENERATION 27. General characteristics .-
The term generation of 27 is used to describe a group of poets who shared some common features and they began to write in the twenties, coinciding with the avant-garde. Its components are m ore known Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillen, Gerardo Diego, Garcia Lorca, Damaso Alonso, Vicente Aleixandre, Luis Cernuda and Rafael Alberti. Common features .-
From the outset showed common concerns and tastes they differed from the other writers of the time.
• All are of similar ages, have a great culture and family background are accommodated.
• They held liberal attitudes in politics and Gerardo Diego unless supported the Republic.
• established a friendship between them, especially in the Residencia de Estudiantes, representing a liberal and secular education versus traditional religious teaching.
• Participation in cultural events, such as the celebration of the tercentenary of Gongora and collaborated in the same journals (West magazine, The Literary Gazette).
? They wanted to modernize poetry.
• Acknowledged as teachers and Ortega Juan Ramón Jiménez.
• They created a generational language, metaphor and consider cultivating poetry in its aesthetic aspect.
• They share their admiration for the classical and modern.
Synthesis of tradition and vanguard .-
The group of 27 traditional and soul refreshing, the taste for popular and high culture, interest in Hispanic literature and European literature.
• In the traditional literature is valued as much as popular cult. Among the classics studied cults and honored to Manrique, Garcilaso, Fray Luis, San Juan de la Cruz, Quevedo, Gongora Lope and especially, the master of the art of metaphor. In popular literature, especially the Cancionero value, the ballads and the tunes in the traditional way of Lope and Gongora. Nearest poetry, highlights the interest in Becquer, Ruben Dario, and above all, by Juan Ramón Jiménez, considered a master of them all.
• From the avant-garde takes the new, the original, the play of wit and humor break. If we review the characteristics of new art, we see that almost all of them appear in the group of poets, especially in the beginning: Thirst for originality, secrecy, self-sufficiency of art (the art work does not depend on reality, but is in something autonomous and self-sufficient); antirealism and antiromanticism; Surrealism irrelevance of art (which must have an aesthetic purpose only and not moral, social or philosophical), prevalence of metaphor and atomization or fragmentary.
Travectoria .-
There are arguably three periods imposed by the historical conditions:
• Initial stage until 1927. It imposes the ideal of pure poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez and the avant-garde influence.
• From 1928 to the Civil War. Begins rehumanization of lyric. The Journal of Pablo Neruda and Vicente Aleixandre, green horse for poetry is the best example of this. His poetry expresses the anguish of human beings, the revolt of the poet and the problems of their environment.
• After the Civil War. This war involved the murder of Lorca and the exile of most poets. At this stage the group can be considered broken. The exiles repeatedly treat the theme of exile, that is, the nostalgia for the homeland, and the protest by the political situation.
Contributions of the generation of 27 .-
• Variety is the trait that best defines the generation, for every poet is an original voice.
• Assessment of the image, which becomes the basis of expression of poetry.
? In the metric, are incorporated into the language definitely free verse poetry and verse. It combines the traditional metric structures with a modern language.
TEMA8La Spanish novel since 1939
Social realist novel and the 50s: novelists are sensitive to changes in the postwar period. This reversal Cela is marked with ‘La Colmena’ (1951). This period is very important to the novel, were written many very good novels are heterogeneous in theme and style, they all try to present the objectivist realism, the desire to reflect the soc. Spanish of his time. Features:
* Narrator outside observer.
* Limiting the role of the characters interested in the context (the Beehive)
* Dissolution of the argument in a succession of anecdotes.
* Concentration in space and time.
* Theme centered on soc. Spanish Now, in the working class and the bourgeoisie.
Camilo Jose Cela (1916-2002): Nobel Prize in 1989, is the most famous novelist of his period. Moreover d the two novels we have quoted, wrote travel books (Journey to the Alcarria), experimental novels in the 60 and 70 (Tenebrae), works set in Galicia (Mazurka for the dead, boxwood)
Miguel Delibes: production has a long narrative, imbued with a critical humanism with soc., Writes novels as ‘The Way’ (1950). In 1966 he published “Five Hours with Mario, considered his best work, based on interior monologue. Among his recent works include ‘The Holy Innocents’ (1983) and ‘The Heretic’ (1998).
Experimental novel of the 60s: experimented some changes this novel. Novels like ‘Time of Silence’, by Martin Santos (1962), ‘Five hours with Mario’ Delibes’ or ‘hallmarks’ of Juan Goytisolo represent the new narrative. The Spanish soc remains the benchmark for the Spanish novels. But now, the focus will be on formal and structural aspects. The novel was reformed by the Hispanic influence, which in the sixties reached a development as quickly as splendid, with novelists like Gabriel García Márquez in “One Hundred Years of Solitude ‘, Mario Vargas, Julio Cortazar, …. Features:
* Creation of novels similar to the ‘open work’, ie a work in which the reader can assimilate the message made by the author, but must take an active role, this is a novel kind of complicated and confusing .
* The importance of the novel way of counting.
* Complex structure. Breaks are common to the past (flashback). Sometimes they have several stories at once.
* Stream of consciousness. The characters express their thoughts freely and wildly.
* Style and language. It dispenses with the simplicity and handles language freely, with big words, no punctuation, mixing records, …
Construction and novelists, the novel that marked the turn was ‘quiet time’ by Luis Martin Santos (1962). After most of the novelists will join the trend of renewal. The authors had already been released in the postwar adapt to new surroundings and join a new trend: Juan Marse, Juan Benet, Luis Goytisolo, Francisco Umbral, …
Item 9. The Spanish theater from 1939
1. – Introduction: overview of the theater of the Civil War to today.
The Spanish theater scene may be poor in comparison with the experiences of foreign theater. The business constraints (submission to the tastes of a bourgeois public) and ideological (iron censorship) persist after the war. Therefore, one can find two kinds of playwrights: Authors of fun, “irrelevant or conformist, and” serious “, whose works will find their way with difficulty against the commercial theater. Just visible near a theater, there was talk of another “underground” was trying to respond to new social requirements and that barely show. Can be distinguished as main stages:
Años40ypart Delos 5o: continuation of the trends of new roads tradicionales.Búsqueda: Teatroexistencial.
Mid 50’s, and social realist drama.
60.70: experimental theater. With democracy, the anticipated growth of the genre was not given.
2. – The theater of the postwar period (years 40)
The war was a deep cut in the theatrical history, the death of some authors (Lorca), the exile of others (Alberti, Aub), little interest in the work of old masters (Benavides, Arniches). Trends of the theater in 40:
High comedy, in line with the theater Benaventine: Pem, Luca de Tena, Edgar Neville, Ruiz Iriarte … Characterized by: predominance of comedies lounge with friendly criticism of the customs and defense of traditional values / / concern for work well done. Comic theater, most interesting facet in these years: Jardiei Poncela [Heloise is beneath an almond tree), which seeks to “renew laughter” introducing the improbable, or Mihura (Three hats.) Precedent of the theater of the absurd.
3. – The ideological drama and social realist drama: 50s.
Faced with the literature of escape appears a serious drama, serious, existential, evolving social realism of the 50s. The turning point is marked by the premiere of Historia de una escalera, Buero Vallejo (49) and bracket to death, Sastre (53). This drama deals with the problems of Spanish society of the time, abandoning the previous escapist tone. The technique used is realistic scenic and easily.
Antonio Buero Vallejo. Lope de Vega Prize 1949 to a Straight Story, a work by an author previously unknown, and that was the representation by the National Theater Company. The novelty of this is the issue, posing conflicts of the society of his time. Shows some features that characterize all his later work: Buero try and engage the viewer uneasy in the search for truth, raises questions about man and his attitude towards the environment.
His theater is located on two fronts: 1. Existential about the meaning of life and the human condition. ~ L Social and political, denouncing injustice and abuse of power. His tragic character lies in the contrast between the desire for self-realization and personal and human limitations.
In 1950 debut in the hot darkness, starting another feature of his work, the symbolic value of certain physical disabilities in their dramas. In the ’60s, the skylight, combining realistic and experimental theater. In its final stage, 70/80, incorporates new scenic resources along with a more experimental stage, include such works as The historic theater Fundación.Tb writes: Las Meninas, The Sleep of Reason …
Alfonso Sastre. Became known for his newspaper articles in which the kind of theater criticism and defends existing social other complaint and protest, which serves to transform reality. Premieres squadron to death in ’53, marking the beginning of political theater that could not be performed on stage. His work was therefore known by amateur or minority representation through reading. In its final stage, evolving into the symbolic and imaginative drama: The tavern fantastic. Fundamental theme of his work: the oppression, dominance of the social versus the individual.
4. – The theater at 60: Evolution of social realism. (Menc. social change, new younger audience and formed)
Begin the work of playwrights born in the 20: Carlos Muniz, Lauro Olmo, Antonio Gala, Martin Recalls … Who intend to be a committed and innovative alternative to commercial theater triumphant. His works reflect the evolution of social realism, while maintaining its critical view of reality, but from an aesthetic symbolic-> D compromise their access to the stage: Franco censorship. Topics: social criticism and denunciation. Aesthetics: Away from the realism tends to new forms of expression, allegorical expression or tone of farce, using a popular language, violent and torn. Works: The wild Puente San Gil, M. Remember, The inkstand, de Muñiz; Rings for a Lady, Gala, the innocent of Mona, Mendez Rodriguez.
5. – The theater in the ’70s: the experimentalism.
Renewal involves overcoming theatrical realism and final testing of new dramatic forms, linked indisputably independent theater (companies of actors and theater directors or commercial).Conceive of theater as an art show in tone, reflecting the heritage experimental renovating the playwrights you. In this theater show, the literary text becomes less important compared to the scenery. Independent Companies: TEI, CAPSA. Groups: Joglars, Los Goliardos, Els Comediants, horsefly, La Fura dels Baus. Playwrights bit supported by public and critics: José Ruibal, Feo. Nieva, Fernando Arrabal (from his voluntary exile in Paris with his theater panic prevailed, Pic-nic) Overall, in the 70 continuing social criticism with a radical shift from realism to a more symbolic or typical, erasing the constraints between genres like the circus, the music or the festive show.
6. – The theater since the ’80s to the present.
The arrival of democracy promoted a new policy for the theater. It created the National Drama Center, theaters were reopened, creating autonomous circuits. Without clutch, expectations have been met, no authors emphasize, clear trends and the public is inclined toward other mass events (sports, music …)
Coexistence of different generations and trends (continuing premiering renowned authors such as Buero Vallejo, A. Gala or F. Nieva). It secures the scene of the author and extreme forms are abandoned before, but there remains widespread and reaches the stage show (Fura dels Baus). Disappearance of censorship and representation of unpublished works of Alberti, Max Aub or ana.
Trends of the theater today: 1. Type Traditional Bicycles are for summer, Fernan Gomez, Ay, Carmela! Of Sinistierra Sanchis. 2. Theater-farce, contains elements of the grotesque and the burlesque, raising controversial issues such as drugs, unemployment and violence. Get off the Moor, by José Luis Alonso de Santos. 3. Experimental theater is usually a theater group that stresses the Fura dels Baus theater with a show.
Terna 10. españla poetry to partirDe 1939
l. introduction
Spanish poetry had Rehumanize in 30. This process is weighed out several poets of the 27th and especially Miguel Hernandez. The truncated civil war tragically poetic situation. Background: Miguel Hernández (1910-42): The life and work of Miguel Hernandez, tragically cut short by the aftermath of the war, serving as a bridge between two stages of Spanish poetry: the group of 27 and the generation of ’36. Nobody exceeded human strength, emotional outburst, hence his contribution to the social poetry paved the way for postwar poetry.
Poetry in Exile: Long list of poets who went into exile, Antonio Machado, Leon Felipe, Juan Ramón Jiménez … and poets who just began their work before the war.
2. the 1st years of the postwar years 40
Poets contemporaries M. Hernandez, often grouped under the F36 generation. Two guidelines: Poetry rooted poets in line with reality, which are grouped around the journal Garcilaso. They left the contest with an optimistic desire for clarity, perfection, order. In classic forms contain a worldview orderly, consistent, and serene. Topics: strong religious sentiment and traditional (landscape, beautiful things) Authors: Luis Rosales, Leopoldo Panero, Rafael Morales … / / Poetry uprooted: Opposed to the previous one. For these authors, the world is in chaos and distress, far from all harmony and serenity. This unease is for Damaso Alonso’s book Children of Wrath. These poets were grouped around the journal Cattail. His poetry is taken away, embarrassed, facing a world shattered and chaotic, overwhelmed by the suffering and anguish. Religion is also very present but in a tone of despair, doubt. The style is harsh, direct, simpler and less concerned about the aesthetic niceties. Authors: Angela Figuera, Carlos Bousono Gaos Vicente, Gabriel Celaya, Blas de Otero / /Other trends: Authors hardly be pigeonholed: Jose Hierro and JM ^ Valverde, Carlos Edmundo de Ory (avant-garde poetry, surrealism Iberian), Miguel Labordeta, Canticle of Cordoba Group, Gloria Fuertes (line very personal)
3.la social poetry. 50
It reinforces the “social realism”. The books are marking this change I ask for peace and the word, Blas de Otero, and Songs Iberians, Celaya, in which both poets surpass his previous period of existential angst to put human problems in a social setting. New concept of the role of poetry in the world must take sides with the problems of the world around him. The poet does “solidarity” of other men, poetry, according to Celaya, a tool to transform the world. / / Poetics practice of poetry as an act of “solidarity” with those who suffer, leaving the expression of intimate problems and rejecting the luxuries beauticians. / / Subject: The topic of Spain, general concern for the country specific issues such as social injustice, the longing for freedom. / / Style: the poet addresses “the majority”, so use clear language, often intentionally prosaico1 and a systematic use of colloquial tone, exaggerating the distance from the aesthetic niceties.
4 poetry socual a new poetic: 60
Overcoming social poetry: Angel Gonzalez, Jaime Gil de Viedma, Jose Angel Valente, Gamoneda … Although it can not be said to form a group, have common features:
Fundamental concern for the man, but run all pathetic treatment. Samples of nonconformity to the world in which they live, but some skepticism them away from social poetry. Theme: Back to the intimate, childhood, familiar … The attention may arise everyday complaints, protests or irony, or, conversely, lead to back pain in skepticism, in a sense of isolation and loneliness.
Style: voluntary departure from the expressive modes of past trends. Equally were rejected by the pathos of poetry uprooted and the usual social prose of poets. Remain faithful to its conversational style, antirhetoric, but obviously that has appeared more rigorous poetic work, every poet takes on the search for a personal language, mixing a warm tone, warm with irony. Reborn interest in the aesthetic and the possibilities of language.
5. experimental poetry, inspired by state: 70
In 1970 published an anthology of great impact: Spanish Novísimos bringing together M. Vazquez Montalban, Feliz de Azua, V. Molina Foix, Leopoldo Panero M § … These poets are very representative of a new sensibility, born in war and who have received a new education. Its cultural and literary background is large, foreign poets know and get great inspiration from film, music and song. The theme is “personally” with “public”, the bass side is a provocative and insolent levity. Personally and politically, are poets nonconformists and dissidents, but his work pursuing aesthetic goals. The style is what matters above all, renewing the language of poetry, surrealism see a lesson in breaking with the logic of an absurd world. For all this, one can say that this is a new avant-garde, experimental parallel flows.
6. Spanish poetry from 1975 to the updated
Complex situation due to the coexistence literary poets from different scales and from different trends or tendencies.
The first is easily visible: they appear as texts of poets enshrined Bousono Iron Valente … while the youngest published also as Antonio Colinas, Luis Alberto de Cuenca, Luis Antonio de Villena, Blanca Andreu … The poets generally waive major themes aimed to explain the world and prefer to express intimate experiences. This individualistic approach does not preclude the predominant existence of a number of trends: