European and Spanish Literary Avant-Garde Movements
European Literary Avant-Garde Movements
A general trait of European literary avant-garde movements is a willingness to experiment, develop new art forms, and express hostility towards tradition. They often displayed an unsentimental approach. These avant-gardes promoted their ideas through manifestos published in literary magazines, where they critiqued official art and asserted their new aesthetics. The most relevant avant-garde movements include:
Expressionism (1910-1925)
Developing most vigorously in Germany and Northern Europe, Expressionism did not radically negate artistic tradition but rather accentuated features already present in Naturalism and Impressionism. Deformation is highlighted to express the physical or psychological characteristics of the subject described. Common elements include strange characters, caricatures, bizarre themes, distortion, and the free use of language. The work of Franz Kafka fits within this atmosphere.
Futurism (1909)
Originating in Italy following the publication of Filippo Tommaso Marinetti’s manifesto, Futurism rejected sentimentality and embraced technological advances, warmongering, dynamism, and sport. The following year, Marinetti wrote the Technical Manifesto of Futurist Literature, proposing:
- The infinitive as the primary verbal form
- Destruction of syntax
- Elimination of adjectives, adverbs, and punctuation
The influence of Nietzsche is revealed in the exaltation of action and violence. Futurism found beauty in new motifs drawn from modern life, such as machinery and automobiles.
Cubism (1913)
Emerging in France as an offshoot of painting by Pablo Picasso and Juan Gris, literary Cubism involved the assessment of three-dimensional space and the geometric decomposition of objects, intended to be reconstructed by the recipient. Guillaume Apollinaire published The Cubist Painters, initiating this movement. An extreme example of the overlap between painting and literature is Apollinaire’s calligrams, where the letters of the text form a drawing alluding to the content.
Dada (1916)
This movement originated in Zurich, Switzerland, around 1916. A group of refugee immigrants organized evenings of aesthetic annihilation at the Cabaret Voltaire, composing poems with words chosen at random. The principal figure was Tristan Tzara. Key features include:
- Propensity for the absurd
- Exaltation of the illogical
- A return to childlike purity
- Search for primitivism
Dadaists attacked the principles of reason, denied everything, and reclaimed spontaneity, surprise, and incoherent speech.
Surrealism (1920s)
Developing in France out of Dada around 1920, Surrealism’s main driver was André Breton, who authored the Surrealist Manifesto. It proclaimed the liberation of humanity through the exploration of dreams and the unknown world, heavily influenced by the theories of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis. Breton proposed automatic writing, where writers attempt to transcribe the unfiltered flow of consciousness. This technique often resulted in unusual word associations.
Avant-Garde Movements in Spain
New avant-garde concerns arrived in Spain primarily through Ramón Gómez de la Serna, who introduced Futurism, and José Ortega y Gasset, who aimed to pave the way for young artists with the Revista de Occidente. However, an organized avant-garde movement did not arise in Spain until the end of the First World War. Later, Vicente Huidobro, one of the initiators of Creationism, passed through Madrid.
Ultraism (1919)
Ultraism was a Spanish avant-garde movement created by Guillermo de Torre in 1919, blending elements of Futurism, Cubism, and Creationism. It advocated for:
- Themes of machinery
- Elimination of punctuation
- Absence of rhyme
The movement’s hub was the Café Pombo, and its aesthetics were promoted in magazines like Cervantes, Ultra, and Horizonte.
Ramón Gómez de la Serna
His extensive literary output includes novels, essays, biographies, and drama. However, his most significant contributions are the introduction of European avant-garde ideas into Spain and the invention of the greguería.
Greguerías
A greguería is a witty and brief sentence arising from an unexpected connection between thought and reality. Gómez de la Serna himself defined them as metaphor + humor. However, the techniques used are varied, including false etymologies, caricatures, and plays on words. Brevity, wit, humor, and surprise are their basic features. He devoted numerous books to this genre, such as Greguerías and Flor de Greguerías. As a playwright, he attempted to participate in the renovation of the stale Spanish theater. He also wrote biographies, memoirs, essays, and novels, with eroticism being a particularly insistent and obsessive theme in his fiction.