Spanish Poetry: Generations of ’98 and ’27
Then, as in the Generation of ’98, the two major figures in the lyric were Antonio Machado and Miguel de Unamuno. Machado initially joined Modernism and later aligned with the ideology and sentiment of ’98. However, Unamuno always remained outside the ideological conception of Modernism. Machado, committed to socialism, reflected this in his own conception of poetry: poetry is an act of communication dominated by sentiment. Among his works are Solitudes and Campos de Castilla; the latter is considered his masterpiece and addresses, on the one hand, Castile from a lyrical and critical perspective, and on the other, patriotic concern for Spain.
We also allude to J.R. Jiménez, since he represents the peak of contemporary poetry in the Spanish language and is one of the most important figures of twentieth-century universal lyric. This author has three ideals: Beauty, Knowledge, and Eternity. He achieves these through his poems and poetry, using a naked style without tricks: pure poetry. This is a very personal vision of poetry that could be described as intellectual or hermetic poetry, focused on detail. Depending on the production stages of the poet, which he described in his famous poem “First came pure”, we can cite some of his most important works:
- In his modernist phase: Noise Loneliness, Poetry Magical and Suffering, Spiritual Sonnets.
- Diary of a Newly Married Poet, Eternity, Poetry, and Beauty belong to the second stage, which is predominantly “naked poetry”, and it is noticeable that the increasing difficulty of his poetry as creation is guided by an ideal of perfection.
In its final stage, J.R. expressed his “experience of the divine.” The poet comes here without leaving God; he himself is not God but his own conscience, an essence that lives in all creatures. Area highlights the poem, written in poetic prose, included in his book At the Other Side, and Animal Background, a hermetic book of abstract ideas that make interpretation difficult.
Finally, in the twentieth century, the “Generation of ’27” stands out. These contemporary poets were composed of marked Juanramonian influence and took their name due to gathering to celebrate the centenary of Góngora in 1927. Among these poets stand Alberti, G. Lorca, J. Guillen, D. Alonso, G. Diego, P. Salinas, V. Aleixandre, and L. Cernuda. Besides the traditional influences (Machado, R. Darío, Bécquer, Góngora…) and popular forms like the songbook or the ballads, these poets were influenced by the avant-garde that resulted in three literary movements in Spain:
- Ultraism, which purports to eliminate any kind of lyrical feeling.
- Creationism, which uses metaphor to create a poetic world again, though inconsistent or illogical.
- Surrealism, in which there was a release of metaphor that is detached from any logical basis.
As for the trajectory of this generation, in the early years, you notice a poetic nuance with any aftertaste of Bécquer, along with postmodernist and avant-garde influence. In a second stage, there is a poetic rehumanization and the bursts of Surrealism. In the final stage, during the war, many poets went into exile and continued their course individually, creating a deeply human poetry.