Spanish Poetry Before 1939: From Modernism to the Generation of ’27

Posted on Sep 14, 2024 in Latin

Spanish Poetry Before 1939

1. Modern Poetry – Generation of ’98

In Spain, the term modernity initially encompassed all writers with innovative aesthetic and artistic impulses. Later, it became reserved for those with a particular focus on aesthetics and an escapist approach, seeking refuge from everyday reality.

Modernist Themes:

The term Generation of ’98 was reserved for writers who adopted a reflective and critical stance towards the political, social, and economic situation in Spain. Their works aimed to permeate the consciousness of their fellow citizens and influence Spanish social reality.

Themes of the Generation of ’98:

Notable modernist and Generation of ’98 poets include:

• Latin America: Rubén Darío
• Spain: Francisco Villaespesa, Manuel and Antonio Machado (while his early work like “Solitudes, Galleries and Other Poems” is considered Modernist, his later work is often included among the Generation of ’98), Valle-Inclán, and Juan Ramón Jiménez (associated with Noucentisme).

Antonio Machado (1875-1939)

Machado’s poetry demonstrates an evolution from the modernism of his early works towards a simpler and more authentic style.

1. Modernist Stage: “Solitudes, Galleries and Other Poems.” This stage falls within intimate modernism (expressing emotions). He explores themes of love, the passage of time, awareness of death, and God. It is a symbolist poetry: the afternoon, the road, the river, a tree become symbols of deeper realities, moods, or intimate obsessions.
2. Generation of ’98 Stage: “Campos de Castilla.” This stage reflects the reality of Spain, its land, and its people. It features a critical attitude that denounces backwardness, poverty, inequality, and injustice.
3. Philosophical Stage: Philosophical concerns and reflections are present in these poems and other prose works, blending subjectivism and objectivism. This stage is represented by “New Songs” (1924) and his later poems, grouped in various poetic collections: The Complementary and the Apocryphal Song(s), Abel Martín and Juan de Mairena.

2. Noucentisme or Generation of ’14

Noucentisme was a cultural movement characteristic of the second decade of the 20th century in Spain. The decline of Modernism was evident, and literary trends advocated for a different kind of literature. The significance of 1914—the start of World War I and the public appearance of the League for Political Education, which included intellectuals like Ortega y Gasset, Manuel Azaña, and Américo Castro—led to the Noucentists also being referred to as the “Generation of ’14.” Their key aesthetic features include:

Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958)

Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956, Juan Ramón Jiménez’s poetry is, in his own words, a poem in sequence, a work in progress. The need to provide a general overview of his work led him to create several anthologies. He identified three stages in his production:

• Sensitive Stage (until 1916): Marked by the influence of Bécquer, Symbolism, and Modernism. It is an emotional and sentimental poetry: Sad Arias (1903), Distant Gardens (1904), The Sonorous Solitude (1911), Platero and I (poetic prose, 1914), and Esti (1916), among others.

• Intellectual Stage (1916-1936): Expression of experience without rhetorical embellishments. This stage is marked by the publication of “Diary of a Newlywed Poet” in 1916, definitively breaking with Modernism and opening Spanish poetry to cutting-edge innovation.

• Final or True Stage (1937-1958): Entirely written during his exile in the Americas. Juan Ramón Jiménez continued to refine his style in search of beauty and perfection. His longing for transcendence led him to identify with God. Key works include Animal de Fondo (1949), On the Other Side (1936-1942), and God Desired and Desiring (1948-49).

3. The Avant-Garde and the Generation of ’27

Spanish Avant-Garde (1910-1920)

The Spanish Avant-Garde was a short-lived movement whose creator and highest representative was Ramón Gómez de la Serna. It represented a break with all previous literature and served as a starting point for authors like Rafael Alberti and Federico García Lorca. This movement encompassed various “isms.”

• Futurism and Cubism celebrated the beauty of speed and machines.

• Ultraism was defined by its desire to shock and its free association of images.

• Surrealism believed it could illuminate a new kind of human being, arguing that Western culture had crippled humanity with reason. It sought to reveal the reality that lies beyond reason and to excite the imagination, desire, and childhood dreams. It had a strong influence in Spain, inspiring works like “About Angels” by Rafael Alberti and “Poet in New York” by Federico García Lorca.

The theoretical work of Ortega y Gasset, with books like “The Revolt of the Masses” and magazines like Revista de Occidente, played a significant role in the Spanish Avant-Garde.

Generation of ’27

This generation consisted of a group of poets who shared a common admiration for Góngora and sought to create poetry that combined the intellectual with the emotional, achieving a perfect balance. These authors managed to reconcile aesthetic purity with human authenticity, the minority with the majority, the universal with the Spanish, etc. They embraced a significant metric renovation characterized by the importance given to rhythm and traditional metric resources. Notable members of the group include Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Dámaso Alonso, Federico García Lorca, Vicente Aleixandre, Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, Emilio Prados, and Manuel Altolaguirre.

One of the hallmarks of the group was its tendency to balance extremes:

Evolution or Stages of the Generation of ’27

According to Dámaso Alonso and Luis Cernuda, there are three distinct stages:

1. Up to 1927: Initial phase with a strong Becquerian influence, rejection of modernism, and avant-garde influences. Juan Ramón Jiménez guided them towards pure poetry (focused on metaphor), leading to a dehumanized art offset by popular poetry (e.g., Alberti’s “Sailor Ashore” and “Book of Poems”, Lorca’s early works).

2. From 1927 to the Civil War: This period marks the peak and decline of aesthetic ideals. There is an intimate and friendly communication with the world and the reader, as seen in Lorca’s “Gypsy Ballads.” With the arrival of Surrealism, they initially explored eternal human emotions (love, longing for fulfillment, existential problems). It was a time of human and passionate poetry, with the introduction of social and political themes. Notable works include “About Angels” (Alberti), “Poet in New York” (Lorca), and “Forbidden Pleasures” and “Where Oblivion Dwells” (Cernuda).

3. The Civil War Period: After the Civil War and Lorca’s death, the group (except for Aleixandre and Gerardo Diego) went into exile, and each poet followed their own direction without abandoning the path of human poetry. Their poetry became testimonial, expressing nostalgia for their lost homeland and the pain of exile. Vicente Aleixandre’s Nobel Prize in Literature in 1977 confirmed the poetic achievements of a group that ushered in a new Golden Age of Spanish poetry.

Poets of the Generation of ’27

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)

Born in Fuente Vaqueros (Granada), Lorca studied Law and Philosophy. In Madrid, he resided at the Residencia de Estudiantes, where he met prominent intellectuals. Besides being a poet, he dedicated himself to music and painting. During his life, marked by success, he cultivated both poetry and drama with equal mastery. Today, he is considered one of the key authors in Spanish literary history. He was executed near Granada for his support of the Republic.

Lorca’s Poetry:

First Stage: “Book of Poems” (recollections of childhood as a lost paradise), “Songs”, and “Poem of the Cante Jondo” fall within the realm of popular poetry (ballads, songs, parallelistic structures), with modernist influences (twelve-syllable and Alexandrine verses). “Gypsy Ballads” is dominated by frustration and tragic destiny, reflecting the soul of Andalusia and offering a mythic vision of human life. Sensory metaphors and adjectives are prominent.

Second Stage: “Poet in New York” reflects his experience during his trip to New York in 1929 through surrealist art: irrational images, chaotic enumerations, etc., critiquing materialistic civilization and the dehumanization, poverty, and lack of solidarity in large urban centers.

“Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías” is an elegy of over two hundred lines dedicated to the bullfighter and friend who died in the bullring of Manzanares. It features poignant irrational images, personifications, and synesthesia.

Other works include “Divan del Tamarit” (poems of intimate and tormented lyricism using classical Arabic poetry molds, including the casida and ghazal), “Six Galician Poems”, and “Sonnets of Dark Love” (exploring the dark, blind impulse of love, encompassing not only the love of feeling and the heart but also the love of the flesh).

Luis Cernuda (1902-1963)

Cernuda is considered the most Becquerian, romantic, sentimental, and passionate poet of the Generation of ’27. His major works are “Forbidden Pleasures” and “Where Oblivion Dwells.”

In “Forbidden Pleasures” (1931), the influence of surrealism is evident in the dreamlike images. He expresses his intimate struggles arising from his homosexuality and his yearning for uninhibited love. “Where Oblivion Dwells” (1934) (the title is taken from a verse by Bécquer) presents an intimate and austere poetry, with minimal use of adjectives and a search for naturalness, expressing his anguish at the gap between his aspirations and reality.

In 1936, he compiled all his poetry under the title “Reality and Desire,” words that reflected the central conflict of his life: the desire for personal and loving freedom against the constraints imposed by society. This work went through several editions, incorporating his production in exile: “The Clouds” (addressing the problem of Spain and the war from the distance of exile), “Living Without Living”, and “With Time” (a work of nostalgia and memories, dominated by an obsession with the passage of time), and finally, posthumously in 1962, “Desolation of the Chimera,” which includes one of his most famous poems, “Spanish Diptych.”

Themes: The passion of love, loneliness, boredom, the longing for a more livable world, the exaltation of beauty. And, in his maturity, nostalgia and memory of Spain, reflection on the passage of time, old age and death, and a more contemplative love.

Rafael Alberti (1902-1999)

Alberti’s poetry can be divided into the following stages:

1. Early Neopopularism: In “Sailor Ashore,” he recalls the lost paradise of his childhood in Cádiz. Formally, it is inspired by traditional poetry, using parallelistic structures, choruses, anaphora, repetition, and eight-syllable verses, sometimes mixed with shorter lines.

2. Baroque and Gongoristic Stage: In “Lime and Stone,” he addresses themes of the modern world: a tram ticket, a soccer goalkeeper. The language is elaborate, and the poems are complex.

3. Surrealism: In “About Angels,” a reflection of a personal crisis he experienced in 1929, the poet is expelled from paradise, feeling faint and hopeless in a meaningless world, besieged by “good and bad angels” that represent his obsessions. The verse is diverse, ranging from short poems to long lines.

4. Committed Poetry: He wrote poetry in support of the Republic and with a social commitment (“Poet in the Street”).

5. Exile: During his exile, his social concerns remained present in many of his poems, alongside nostalgia (“Return of the Living from Afar” and “Ballads and Songs of Paraná”).

Vicente Aleixandre (1898-1984)

Style: Until the 1930s, his work revolved around the avant-garde: pure poetry and surrealism. From Invocations (1934) onwards, his poems leaned towards meditation and sobriety, seeking a natural and expressive conversational tone.

His work can be divided into three stages:

Poetry Before the Civil War:

Formally, he used free verse, and this stage was heavily influenced by surrealism. Two key titles are “Swords and Lips” and “Destruction or Love.” In “Swords and Lips,” the central theme is love as a destructive force; the passion of love is identified with the passion for the earth, and the feeling of love allows humans to integrate into the cosmos. The verses of “Destruction or Love” show continuity with the previous book. The poet frequently expresses a pessimistic tone, longing to merge with nature. The human being is part of nature and desires to fuse with it (mystical materialism). The fusion of love (passionate love) is like a simulation because the achievement of this union will only occur with the destruction of death—a vital destruction because it allows us to transcend purely individual reality.

Poetry of the Early Post-War Period:

“Shadow of Paradise” (1944), written after the Civil War, marked a revival of pre-war surrealism in Spanish poetry. From the distress of the harsh post-war period, it evokes paradise before the appearance of man on Earth, the biblical Eden, the world of childhood dreams, and the uncontaminated world. “History of the Heart” (1954) represents a re-humanization of his poetry. The poet recognizes himself in others, and the human being comes to the forefront, moving closer to nature. Key concepts now include solidarity, struggle, effort, and the collective.

Poetry of Old Age:

In “Poems of Consummation” (1968), dominated by reflection and meditation, the poet addresses the theme of the end of life, which he feels approaching. He sees death as an integration with the cosmos (“to breathe underground earth”). Faced with death, there is no anguish or religious sense, but simply acceptance.

Pedro Salinas (1891-1951)

Initially, Salinas cultivated poetry influenced by the avant-garde, which manifested in his focus on objects of modern life: cars, film, electric light.

In his mature period, the central theme of his poetry is love: “The Voice Due to You,” “Reason for Love,” and “Long Lament” (titles taken from verses by Garcilaso de la Vega’s Eclogue III, medieval literature, and Bécquer’s Rhyme XV, respectively).

In exile, his poetry takes on a more dramatic and concerned tone (as seen in the poem “Zero” about the atomic bomb). His last book, “Confidence” (1955), is filled with joyful memories of life lived.

Style: He uses short sentences with few adjectives, nominal constructions, and a simple lexicon. He favors pronouns, which name the substance, over nouns and adjectives, which name the accidental. However, his poetry is characterized by its complexity and intellectual concentration. He predominantly uses free verse or a combination of heroic verse with shorter lines.

Jorge Guillén (1893-1984)

Guillén is the highest representative of pure poetry. His two major works are “Cántico” (Song) and “Clamor” (Cry). “Cántico” celebrates life and expresses enthusiasm for the world. The poet enjoys the contemplation of all creation, stating, “The world is well made.” “Clamor” bears witness to pain and evil, injustice, misery, and war, now proclaiming, “This world of man is wrong.”

Style: He uses a highly concentrated language, preferring short sentences, nominal style, infinitives, and monosyllabic exclamations. He employs traditional stanzas based on regular verses.

Gerardo Diego (1896-1987)

His works are usually classified into two groups:

1. Poetry of Creation: Also called “absolute” poetry, it aligns with the avant-garde. These are the years of “Ultraism” and “Creationism” (free verse, unexpected images, visual poetry). This includes books like “Image” and “Manual of Foam.”

2. Poetry of Expression or Traditional Poetry: Also called “relative” poetry, it refers to traditional poetry, including works like “The Ballad of the Bride” (1918), “Human Verses” (1925), and “Skylark of Truth” (1941). He uses classic metric forms: ballads, sonnets, etc.

Dámaso Alonso (1898-1991)

Alonso is considered the leading critic of the Generation of ’27. His studies of stylistics are highly regarded. As a poet, he is considered less prominent than his peers. He began in the realm of pure poetry, but his best work is undoubtedly “Children of Wrath” (1944), a key work of the Spanish Civil War. It is a work of “poetry of exile,” expressing the chaos and anguish of a world in turmoil, a frantic search for meaning and stability. It is an existential poetry. Children of Wrath is a cry of protest against injustice, hatred, and cruelty. The poet questions God about the meaning of such decay. It is written in free verse.