Spanish Lyric Poetry: Postwar Period to the 1970s

Posted on Jan 22, 2025 in Latin

Spanish Lyric Poetry: From the Postwar Period to the Late 1950s

As was happening in other literary genres, there was also a major change following the Civil War. However, there were some bridges between poetry before and after the war. Two of the poets of the Generation of ’27 who remained in Spain became role models for young writers:

  • Dámaso Alonso, whose Hijos de la ira (1944) started a trend of existential poetry.
  • Vicente Aleixandre, whose History of the Heart (1954) became the model for postwar social poets.

Other trends include:

  1. Continued rehumanization of poetry that had already begun in 1927 with Surrealism.
  2. Authors who continued avant-garde experiments of the 1920s (Carlos Edmundo de Ory, Gloria Fuertes, and Miguel Labordeta).
  3. A group of poets who continued the poetic line of the Generation of ’27 and Luis Cernuda.

Late 1950s and Early 1960s

A number of authors appeared (Caballero Bonald, González, etc.) who tried to continue writing poetry that was critical and committed, but with more elaborate forms, fleeing the excess of simplicity of the previous period. The features that characterize them are:

  1. Fundamental concern for man and his problems (both social and existential), but leaving all drama behind, approaching it even with humor.
  2. Disagreement with the reality of life, though not the exclusive theme, and therefore away from social poetry.
  3. Poetry based on personal, everyday experiences.
  4. Themes: Intimacy, everyday life, loneliness, marginalization, and human isolation.
  5. Style:
    • Reborn interest in the formal values of the poem.
    • Search for a personal language.
    • Irony and humor.
    • Concentration of style.

The “Nuevísimos” (1970s)

In 1970, José María Castellet published the book Nueve Novísimos Poetas Españoles, which includes poems by young authors he considers the most significant (Carlos Barral, Pedro Gimferrer, Antonio Colinas, Antonio Martínez de Sarrión, Guillermo Carnero, etc.). The common features of these poets are:

  1. Significant cultural preparation.
  2. Nonconformity and rebellion against established art.
  3. Search for a renewal of poetic language.
  4. Their literary models were:
    • Hispanic-American poets such as Octavio Paz and Jorge Luis Borges.
    • Postwar Spanish poets who had initiated a process of renewal of poetic language: Grupo Cántico, Postismo, Generation of ’50.
  5. Scholarly and exclusive references to culture: mythology, art, classical music, literature, and popular mass culture (movies, rock and roll, etc.).

Poetry Since 1975

As with the novel and drama, in the poetry of the past few years, we find a variety of trends, although the most common trait is a return to poetry that focuses on the expression of intimate and everyday experiences. Here are some of these trends:

  1. Experimental poetry that continues the cutting-edge initiatives from previous years.
  2. Refined poetry, highly educated and exclusive. Its representative is Luis Antonio de Villena.
  3. Eroticism, highlighted by Ana Rosetti.
  4. Poetry of Experience (Luis García Montero and Felipe Benítez Reyes), characterized by urban subjects treated with great realism and an underlying disenchanted vision of life.