Generation of ’27: A Deep Dive into Spanish Literature
Generation of ’27: An Overview
A literary generation is a group of writers who were born around the same time, influenced by a significant event, face similar challenges, and react to them in comparable ways. The Generation of ’27 is a prime example of this phenomenon in Spanish literature.
What Defines the Generation of ’27?
- A Group of Writers: The main representatives include Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Dámaso Alonso, Vicente Aleixandre, Miguel Hernández, and Luis Cernuda.
- Born on Close Dates: The age difference between the youngest (Cernuda) and the oldest (Salinas) was only nine years.
- Driven by an Event: The event that united them and gave them their name was a tribute to Luis de Góngora in Seville in 1927, commemorating the tercentenary of his death. The influence of Juan Ramón Jiménez is also noteworthy.
- Similar Reaction: They all felt the need to find a poetic language that better expressed the issues they addressed.
Features of the Generation of ’27
Tradition and Progressiveness
While seeking new forms of poetry, they didn’t break with Spanish traditions. They admired Góngora’s poetic language, the classics, and popular forms of Romance.
Simultaneously, avant-garde currents, especially surrealism, heavily influenced the group. Surrealist writers explored the unconscious, aiming to achieve absolute beauty beyond reality.
Intent Aesthetics
They sought beauty through imagery, aiming to eliminate anything from the poem that wasn’t beautiful, thus achieving pure poetry. They wanted to represent reality without describing it, removing anything non-poetic.
Themes
They showed particular interest in fundamental human concerns like love, death, fate, and popular, rooted issues.
Style
They prioritized linguistic expression, seeking a language rich in lyricism. The authors of the Generation of ’27 displayed a significant tendency to balance and synthesize opposites, even within the same author:
- Intellect vs. Sentiment: Excitement tended to be restrained by intellect. Intelligence, emotion, and intellectualism were preferred over sensitivity, sentimentality (as noted by José Bergamin). This is clearly observed in Salinas’s work.
- Romantic vs. Classical Conception of Art: They balanced rapture and inspiration with rigorous discipline and the pursuit of perfection. Lorca stated that if he was a poet “by the grace of God (or the devil)”, it was no less “by the grace of technique and effort.”
- Aesthetic Purity vs. Human Authenticity: They navigated between pure poetry (art for art’s sake, the desire for beauty) and genuine, human poetry concerned with human problems (more common after the war in the works of Guillén, Aleixandre, etc.).
- Art for Minorities vs. Majorities: They alternated between hermeticism and clarity, the cultured and the popular (Lorca, Alberti, Diego). There’s a sense of a shift from “I” to “we.” As Aleixandre said, “The poet sings to all.”
- Universal vs. Spanish: They balanced the influences of contemporary European poetry (surrealism) with the best of Spanish poetry. They felt a strong attraction to Spanish folk poetry: songbooks, ballads, etc.
- Tradition vs. Renewal: They felt close to the avant-garde (Lorca, Alberti, Cernuda, and Aleixandre had surrealist works; Gerardo Diego explored creationism) and the previous generation (admiring Juan Ramón Jiménez, Miguel de Unamuno, the Machado brothers, Rubén Darío, etc.). They also admired 19th-century poets like Bécquer (Alberti’s “Tribute to Bécquer,” Cernuda’s “Where Oblivion Dwells”) and held a genuine zeal for the classics: Jorge Manrique, Garcilaso de la Vega, San Juan de la Cruz, Fray Luis de León, Francisco de Quevedo, Lope de Vega, and above all, Góngora.
Versification
They used traditional stanzas (romance, décima, etc.) and classical forms (sonnet, triolet, etc.). They also employed free verse and sought rhythm through the repetition of words, syntactic patterns, or parallel ideas.
Stages in Evolution
Until 1927
Bécquer and Modernism’s influence were prominent. Soon, the first avant-garde movements appeared. Simultaneously, influenced by Juan Ramón Jiménez, they leaned towards “pure poetry”: “Pure poetry is all that remains in the poem after eliminating everything that is not poetry” (Guillén). They purified the poem of anything anecdotal, any emotion not purely artistic. Metaphor was widely used. This poetry was quite concise and emotionally restrained.
The “human” also influenced them, especially through popular lyricism (Alberti). The thirst for perfection led to formal classicism, particularly from 1925 to 1927. We can even speak of a “Góngora” phase.
From 1927 to the Civil War
A certain weariness with pure formalism began to emerge. A process of re-humanization started (more evident in some, but present in all). Surrealism appeared initially (radically opposed to pure poetry). New, more human themes emerged: love, the desire for fulfillment, frustration, social and existential concerns. The magazine Caballo Verde para la Poesía (Green Horse for Poetry) was founded by Pablo Neruda in 1935, featuring the “Manifesto for a Poetry Without Purity.”
Some poets, due to their social concerns, became interested in politics (mainly in favor of the Republic).
After the War
Lorca died in 1936. The group dispersed:
- In exile: Guillén wrote Clamor, a work that departs from pure poetry. The theme of the lost homeland appears.
- In Spain: Only Dámaso Alonso and Vicente Aleixandre remained, creating anguished, existential poetry (Hijos de la ira, 1944).