Generation of ’27: Key Poets and Their Impact

Posted on Jan 12, 2025 in Latin

Generation of ’27: A Closer Look

The Generation of ’27 refers to an influential group of Spanish poets that rose to prominence in the 1920s. In 1927, they commemorated the tercentenary of the death of Baroque poet Luis de Góngora, an event that served as a symbolic meeting point for most members of the generation. Around this time, they published significant books and magazines that solidified their place in literary history.

Influences and Characteristics

The Generation of ’27 was heavily influenced by figures like Juan Ramón Jiménez and José Ortega y Gasset. They masterfully blended tradition and innovation, rescuing traditional poetry forms while paying homage to Góngora, Garcilaso de la Vega, San Juan de la Cruz, Lope de Vega, and Francisco de Quevedo. They were also influenced by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, Rubén Darío, Antonio Machado, Miguel de Unamuno, and Symbolist poets like Paul Valéry and Stéphane Mallarmé. They incorporated various avant-garde techniques but did not adhere to any single one in particular.

Major Themes

  • Love: Presented as a path to individual fulfillment, embracing all forms of love, including heterosexual and homosexual, with a sense of total freedom.
  • The Universe, Destiny, and Death: These themes are explored with a philosophical and existential lens.
  • The City: Viewed through a futuristic lens filled with optimism, though also acknowledging the negative aspects of human development.
  • Art as a Poetic Theme: Influenced by the avant-garde, art itself becomes a subject of poetic creation.
  • Nature: Sometimes depicted as a setting, other times as an integral part of the poetic form.

Forms and Style

The Generation of ’27 employed both traditional metric forms and free verse. They masterfully used rhythm to create a musical quality in their poems. We can distinguish several stages in their evolution:

  1. First Stage (Youth): Coincides with the group’s formation and the splendor of the avant-garde, cultivating “pure poetry.”
  2. Second Stage: Marked by crises, finding in Surrealism a way to translate their conflicts, and a complicated political situation that led them to create committed poetry.

Key Poets of the Generation

1. Pedro Salinas

A poet of feelings, exploring themes like love, life as a dream, loneliness, and monotony. His style features:

  • Use of dialogue.
  • Contrast and rhythm achieved through parallelism.
  • Use of bimembrations and repetition.
  • Short verses, alone or combined with others.

Notable Works: Presagios, La voz a ti debida, Razón de amor, Largo lamento, Todo más claro.

2. Jorge Guillén

Guillén focused on conveying the essential idea or feeling, suppressing the accessory. His themes include a joyous affirmation of being, time, chance, and chaos. His style is characterized by condensed and precise language and a wide range of meters.

Notable Works: Cántico, Clamor, Homenaje.

3. Gerardo Diego

Diego’s work encompasses love, landscape, experiences and memories, bullfighting, religion, and music. He blended avant-garde and traditional features.

Notable Works: Imagen, Manual de espumas.

4. Federico García Lorca

A key figure of the Generation of ’27, Lorca explored these themes:

  1. Love: Validating any erotic inclination.
  2. Death: Often seen as a consequence of failed love.
  3. Childhood: The age of innocence.
  4. Society: Presented with a dual nature; on one hand, the moral impositions that lead to frustration, and on the other, a tendency to punish the defenseless.

Lorca’s style evolved, but constants include evocative language, symbolism, and musicality. He used both classical and free verse. Key symbols in his work include:

  • Moon: Represents life and death, fertility and infertility.
  • Metals: Represent death and perfection.
  • Blood: Represents fertility and life on one hand, and death on the other.
  • Water: A provider of erotic life; stagnant water symbolizes death.
  • Horse: Sometimes represents life and male eroticism, other times death.

Notable Works: Romancero gitano, Poeta en Nueva York, Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías.

5. Rafael Alberti

Alberti’s themes include nostalgia for a lost paradise, the anguish caused by this loss, and social concerns. He used various forms, from popular styles to free verse.

Notable Works: Marinero en tierra, Sobre los ángeles.

6. Luis Cernuda

Cernuda’s poetry is characterized by a contradictory attitude towards reality: he both hates and loves it. He employed both classical forms and free verse. His work is rich in symbols and visionary images.

Notable Works: La realidad y el deseo (which includes: Égloga, elegía, oda, Un río, un amor, Los placeres prohibidos, Donde habite el olvido).

7. Vicente Aleixandre

A Surrealist poet whose works are often difficult to interpret. He frequently used short verses and sometimes free verse.

Notable Works: Espadas como labios, La destrucción o el amor.