Spanish Poetry: 1940s to 1960s – Key Movements and Poets
Spanish Poetry: 1940s to 1960s
The Poetry of the War: The Forties Trends
- Miguel Hernandez: Formal initiatives. Topics: death, life, and love. Structure: sonnet. During the war, he wrote *Wind* (1937), with a more popular and patriotic tone. Book: *Ballad Songbook and Absences* (1938-1941) contains poems about jail.
- Entrenched Poetry: *Escorial* journals brought together poets such as Leopoldo Panero and Luis Rosales, who advocated for classical poetry. Topics: nostalgia for the empire and Spanish love or religious experiences.
- Uprooted Poetry: *Espadaña* magazine, led by Victoriano Crémer and Eugenio de Nora, influenced by existentialism, advocated for a more direct, less rhetorical, and committed poetry.
- Fringe Journals: *Cántico* was the expression of Pablo García Baena, whose poetry was inspired by the exquisite and meticulous.
- Postismo: Carlos Edmundo de Ory tried to link to the avant-garde.
- 1944: Two significant books were published: *Shadow of Paradise* by Vicente Aleixandre and *Children of Wrath* by Dámaso Alonso. The first is an exaltation of nature that man is determined to destroy and inevitably move away from. *Children of Wrath* reflects the existential malaise of the time. The title refers to the poems of anguish and anger at injustice, pain, and the horror of life. Rupture is a central theme. Dámaso Alonso’s poems feature lengthy verses and give free rein to their deep uprooting. The lexicon reflects the discomfort of being born.
Social Poetry of the Fifties
Social poetry gained strength in 1950, showing the true reality of man and the country.
Thematic and Formal Characteristics
- The subject is the basis on which the poem is built. The aim is to witness the economic difficulties of the lower classes and the alienation or dehumanization of work, or to encourage worker solidarity and revolutionary struggle. The concern for Spain and the memory and overcoming of hatred caused by the Civil War are standing items.
- The ideal audience is the “vast majority”. Poetry should be directed to as many people as possible and stop being an elitist art or mere decoration.
- To communicate with the public, poets use straightforward, colloquial, or conversational language, often prosaic.
Main Poets
Blas de Otero, Gabriel Celaya, and José Hierro. So many poets with so few readers, along with the social and economic changes of the 1960s, explains the depletion of social poetry and the discredit that it fell into later. However, from today’s perspective, this period includes some of the best poems of the twentieth century: *I Ask for Peace and the Word* (1955) and *That Treatise of Spain* (1964) by Blas de Otero; *Much You Know Me* (1957) by José Hierro; and *Iberian Songs* (1955) by Celaya.
Poetry from the Sixties
In the mid-fifties, a new group of poets appeared who, without abandoning their commitment to human problems, returned to worrying about the artistic nature of poetry. Their work consolidated in the sixties.
The Promotion of the Sixties
- Poets: Ángel González, José Agustín Goytisolo, Carlos Barral, Jaime Gil de Viedma, Claudio Rodríguez, José Ángel Valente, and Félix Grande. In their first books, the influence of social poets is evident, and Antonio Machado becomes an ethical and aesthetic reference. Many of these authors fought the Franco regime.
- Concept of Poetry: Communication is only one element of poetry, but not the principal one. Poetry is conceived as a means of knowledge of reality, and personal experiences illuminate dark areas of the human being and the world.
- Topics: Intimacy and leisure of individual experience; hence the name “poetry of experience” for this current. The everyday aspects of personal life appear in their poems, although with a distanced treatment.
- Treatment of Language: The colloquial tone rises to an artistic level; they flee from excitement and the prosaic. They seek an individual style in which humor, irony, and the echoes of readings and songs produce the feeling of a cozy and intimate conversation with the reader.
Notable Works
Among the numerous titles published by these authors, the following can be highlighted: *Treaty of Urban Planning* (1967) by Ángel González; *Posthumous Poems* (1968) by Gil de Viedma; *Nineteen Figures of My Civil History* (1961) by Carlos Barral; *Of Drunkenness Don* (1953) by Claudio Rodríguez; *Wind Psalms* (1958) by José Agustín Goytisolo; *Memory and Signs* (1966) by Valente; and *White Spirituals* (1967) by Félix Grande.