Silver Age Literature, Generation of ’27, and Rafael Alberti
The Silver Age of Spanish Literature
Europe experienced political and social changes, economic recovery, and a boom in experimental artistic tendencies (Avant-Garde) during the interwar period. These three decades produced one of the most splendid cultural moments in Spanish history, known as the Silver Age of Spanish Literature. Important writers from three successive generations were active during this period:
- The greatest writers of Modernism and the Generation of ’98: (Unamuno, Baroja, Azorín, Machado, Valle-Inclán).
- The intellectuals of the Generation of ’14 or Novecentismo (highlighted by Juan Ramón Jiménez).
- Coinciding with the movement of artistic renewal (Avant-Garde), the young poets of the Generation of ’27: (Salinas, Alberti, García Lorca, Aleixandre, Guillén, Alonso, Cernuda), who held the previous generation in high regard and considered Juan Ramón Jiménez their mentor.
Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958)
Juan Ramón Jiménez devoted his life and work to the relentless pursuit of perfection and beauty through poetry. He saw poetry as a way of knowing the truth and the essence of his poetic world, following a gradual cleansing that culminates in pure poetry. His career is divided into three stages:
- Sensitive Stage: Arias Tristes (1903), La Soledad Sonora (1911)
- Intellectual Stage: Introduced a new rhythm to the poem through free verse, and his language became very dense and conceptualized.
- True Stage: Stories (1912), Platero y Yo (1914)
The Avant-Garde and the Generation of ’27
In the 1920s, as the group of poets known as the Generation of ’27 emerged, a series of highly original artistic movements, provocative and disruptive, triumphed: the Avant-Garde. They developed a dehumanized art, conceived as pure and independent of reality, with a playful and experimental intent.
The term Generation of ’27 refers to a group of poets who shared, among other features, a great admiration for the Baroque poet Luis Góngora. Among the main members of this group are the poets Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Federico García Lorca, etc. Above all, they agreed on their desire to renew tradition by combining poetry with modernity, taking traditional elements from an innovative new aesthetic perspective:
“From the oldest literary tradition, they collected both the cultured and the popular. In the latest, they revisited Bécquer, Rubén Darío, and Juan Ramón Jiménez, from whom they inherited the most refined aspects of pure poetry and the neopopulism of traditional roots.”
“In the modern avant-garde, they embraced the whole concept of metaphor as pure creation, original and witty. In the beginning, they showed a trend towards an intellectual and dehumanized art, which suppresses sentimental and personal anecdotes.”
Rafael Alberti (1902-1999)
Rafael Alberti’s vast poetic work incorporates a variety of styles and influences specific to the Generation of ’27, shaped by his great technical virtuosity. His literary career began with the neotraditionalist poetry of Marinero en Tierra and Dawn of Wallflower, followed by Cal y Canto. He also incorporated more subjective topics such as longing for his country, his childhood, and youth.