Modernism and the Generation of ’27: A Literary Revolution
Modernism (1880-1914)
Modernism was a cultural and literary movement that emerged in Latin America, led by José Martí and Rubén Darío. Initially mirroring Spanish tradition, young modernists sought to assert their American roots, rebelling against Spanish influences. This synthetic art movement drew inspiration from 19th-century aesthetics, including Romanticism, Parnassianism, French Symbolism, and American, Italian, and English literature. These influences led to a renewed vocabulary, rhythm, and meter, creating a distinct aesthetic. Modernism aimed for absolute beauty and formal perfection, rejecting everyday reality. Artists sought refuge in imaginary worlds.
Traits and Characteristics
- From Romanticism: Discontent with life, the cult of death, loneliness, melancholy, imagination, and fantasy.
- From Parnassianism: The pursuit of formal perfection, the evocation of ancient myths, exoticism, and aesthetic pleasure.
- From Symbolism: Suggestion, musical effects, and the poet as a means of understanding the world.
Modernist beauty was achieved through visual imagery, color, music, and sound effects. Favored verses included dodecasyllabic and Alexandrine lines, along with free and traditional verse. A rich lexicon emphasized the prestige of words.
Modernism in Spain
The late 19th-century Spanish poetry scene was dominated by the prosaic language of Ramón de Campoamor and Núñez de Arce. Before Rubén Darío’s arrival, only Salvador Rueda and Francisco Villaespesa could be considered early modernists. Key modernist writers in Spain included Juan Ramón Jiménez, the Machado brothers, and Ramón del Valle-Inclán.
Modernism vs. Generation of ’98
The distinction between aesthetic modernists and intellectual thinkers (Generation of ’98) was proposed by Pedro Salinas but later debated. Dámaso Alonso differentiated between modernist art and the ’98 attitude. These concepts could intertwine within a single poet or poem. While the ’98 focused on regenerationist issues, isolating this movement from the broader Hispanic literary context is problematic. Azorín criticized this artificial division, attributing the term “Generation of ’98” (or Generation of the Century) to the Spanish modernists.
Antonio Machado’s Poetry
Antonio Machado studied education and visited Paris twice (1889 and 1902), working as a translator and encountering Parnassianism and Symbolism. His first book, Solitudes (1903), showed modernist influence. A second edition (1907) was titled Solitudes, Galleries, and Other Poems. He secured a teaching position in Soria, marrying Leonor Izquierdo, who tragically died young. Machado, deeply depressed, moved to Baeza, completing his Arts degree. He later moved to Segovia and was elected to the Royal Spanish Academy. He found love again with Guiomar, but the Civil War forced them apart. Machado fled to Valencia, Barcelona, and finally France, where he died shortly after arriving.
Works
- Solitudes, Galleries, and Other Poems: Explores inner emotions (pain, memories, melancholy, childhood).
- Campos de Castilla: Features four poetic groups: Soria (landscape reflecting Spain’s soul), Baeza (Andalusian influence and social criticism), Proverbs and Songs (meditations on man and the world).
- Praise: Dedicated to Francisco Giner de los Ríos, José Ortega y Gasset, Rubén Darío, and Miguel de Unamuno.
- Images: Explores symbolic imagery (e.g., walker and road, water and stone).
Machado excelled in creating and deconstructing symbols. He preferred shorter verses (octosyllabic) but also used dodecasyllabic and Alexandrine lines in modernist-influenced poems. He favored the silva arromanzada and free verse.
The Poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poetic career is divided into three stages: sensory, intellectual, and true.
Sensory Stage (1898-1915)
Influenced by Bécquer, Symbolism, and Modernism. Features landscape descriptions reflecting the poet’s soul: autumnal scenes, gardens at twilight, sadness, melancholy, music, color, memories, and dreams of love. Works include Rhymes, Sad Arias, Distant Gardens, Sound Solitude, and Summer.
Intellectual Stage (1916-1936)
Marked by a trip to America. The sea symbolizes life, loneliness, joy, and the eternal present. A spiritual evolution towards transcendence and a pursuit of eternity through poetic beauty. Works include Diary of a Newly Married Poet (a departure from earlier work with simplified vocabulary, short poems, free verse, and prose poems), First Anthology of Poetry, Eternity, Stone and Sky, Poetry, Beauty, and The Total Station.
True Stage (1937-1968)
Continues the search for beauty and perfection, identifying with God. Works include Animal of Substance (seeking God within), Third Anthology of Poems, On the Other Side, and God Desired and Desiring (identifying with God).
Avant-Garde Literature and the Generation of ’27
Avant-garde movements of the early 20th century rebelled against art based on reality, inheriting Symbolism’s taste for the exceptional and strange. These movements, often disseminating their ideas through manifestos and magazines, shared characteristics like anti-realism, art’s autonomy, irrationalism, and a desire for originality.
European Avant-Garde Movements
- Futurism: Championed mechanical civilization and new technologies, advocating for poetic language renewal.
- Cubism: Decomposed reality into geometric shapes, influencing Guillaume Apollinaire’s calligrams.
- Surrealism: Explored the unconscious and dreams to find true reality.
- Ultraism: Advocated abolishing narrative elements, emphasizing perception and metaphor.
- Creationism: Defended symbolism.
- Expressionism: Used intense imagery and character deformation, exploring anxiety and oppression.
- Dadaism: Called for the destruction of art standards, embracing inconsistency and intuition.
Avant-Garde in Spain
Spain experienced a cultural opening towards Europe in the early 20th century. Avant-garde movements spread through magazines. Surrealism, promoted by Juan Larrea, became highly influential.
Novecento
Novecento, initiated by intellectuals, dominated the Spanish cultural scene in the 1920s and 1930s. Characterized by intellectual rigor, objective analysis, and a preference for classicism and balance, it rejected sentimentalism. Novecentists defended pure art, intellectual elitism, and a refined style, engaging with official life to influence Spanish reality.
Generation of ’27
This group of poets, including Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre, Luis Cernuda, and others, led Spanish literature to a golden age. They blended Novecentism and avant-garde elements.
Tradition and Renewal
The Generation of ’27 integrated valuable elements from the past, drawing from traditional lyric forms, popular and cultured lyrics, and classical Spanish literature. They were influenced by romances, ballads, sonnets, and the works of San Juan de la Cruz, Fray Luis de León, and Garcilaso de la Vega. Góngora’s influence was crucial, as was Bécquer’s refined concept of poetry. They adapted avant-garde forms, using free verse, blank verse, calligrams, and collage.
Themes
Love, death, fate, and the universe were central themes. The group’s early stage focused on pure poetry, influenced by Juan Ramón Jiménez. Later, some poets explored avant-garde movements, particularly Surrealism, while others remained faithful to pure poetry. The Civil War fragmented the group, with many members going into exile.
Pedro Salinas
Salinas’s poetry explored the essence of things and life experiences. His themes included love, desire, and absolute understanding. His style emphasized restraint and lexical selection through contrasts, oppositions, parallels, and repetitions. His career is divided into three stages: avant-garde influence, Gongorine influence (Presages, Secure Fable, and Random Sign), and the love trilogy (Voice Due to You, The Reason of Love, and Longing). Voice Due to You, a tribute to self-annihilation through love, features a dialogue between “I” and “you.” Its structure has been interpreted in various ways, focusing on themes of joy, anguish, pain, and the stages of a love relationship. Salinas employed stylistic resources like parallels, paradoxes, antitheses, and metaphors.
Jorge Guillén
Guillén’s poetry resulted from rigorous selection, eliminating all but the essential idea. His works include Cántico (a hymn to creation) and Clamor and Homenaje.
Gerardo Diego
Diego combined avant-garde and traditional elements. His works include Ballads of the Bride, Chopin Nocturnes, Image, Manual of Foams, Human Verses, and Fable of Equis and Zeda. His poetry is divided into two stages: expressive poetry (influenced by Bécquer and Jiménez) and absolute poetry (influenced by avant-garde movements).
Federico García Lorca
Lorca, a key figure of the ’27 Generation, excelled in music, painting, playwriting, and poetry. His childhood and peasant roots influenced his work, with themes of lost childhood and the obsession with death. Gypsy Ballads (1928) marked his consecration as a great poet. His poetic career involved a search for aesthetic beauty. Early works like Book of Poems showed modernist and romantic influences. Gypsy Ballads and Poem of the Deep Song embodied the world of Andalusia. His trip to New York marked a shift towards avant-garde aesthetics, evident in Poet in New York. Later works like Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, Six Galician Poems, and Divan of the Tamarit explored themes of love and death.
Manuel Machado
Manuel Machado admired Rubén Darío’s metrical innovations but sought a more internalized poetry. His works include Alma (modernist influence), The Bad Poem (urban poetry), Cante Hondo (popular genre), and Ars Moriendi (reflective and resigned tone).
Ramón Gómez de la Serna
Gómez de la Serna promoted the avant-garde with his greguerías, humorous metaphors offering surprising associations. These short texts defied the logic of reality.
Miguel de Unamuno
Unamuno’s poetry sought to liberate poetic language from Romantic rhetoric. He criticized Modernism and pursued free verse. His works include The Christ of Velázquez, Poems, Sonnets, Lyrical Rosary, Inner Rhymes, Teresa, and Memories of my Father’s Dictatorship.
Rubén Darío
Darío’s early works, like Epistles and Poems, addressed social and political themes. Blue, influenced by French poetry, created a fantasy world with exotic imagery. Profane Prose showcased metrical innovations and verbal brilliance. Songs of Life and Hope reflected on Hispanic culture and existential themes, expressing weariness and pessimism.