Spanish Poetry of the 20th Century: Modernism and Vanguard
Nouveau
(Introduction) In the second half of the 19th century, Spain had produced a conservative, middle-class ideology that was based on the belief in progress and technical advances. A universal crisis began to appear, resulting in a fin de siècle culture with different events such as the reaction against naturalistic rationalism. Alternative forms of knowledge based on irrationalism replaced irrational intuition. Poetic Modernism began in France with the appearance of Parnassianism and Symbolism, which first advocated “art for art’s sake” and rejected Romantic sentimentality. Symbolists sought a new language, the language of suggestion, to replace the notion of reality by using intuition.
Modernism
Modernism was an aesthetic and cultural renewal that took place around 1885. It was a current reacting against positivism and which reconciled Francophilia and exoticism with Spanish tradition and expressive simplicity. Modernists rebelled against materialism and the bourgeoisie.
Artistic Climate of the End of the Century
The loss of confidence in reason appeared in many common themes, among these are:
- Impressionism: Trying to translate the changing literature of reality.
- Aestheticism: Transforming life into a work of art, rejecting bourgeois mediocrity and opting for dropping-like forms of bohemia.
- Decadence: Highlighting the unhealthy and the forbidden. Life is considered an abyss and the only solution is to flee to artificial paradises through sex and drugs.
- Mysticism: A form of irrationalism that seeks to explain reality through impossible states with the help of drugs and alcohol.
- Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood: An English movement which encompassed painting and poetry, with classical and biblical themes. Sex and art agreed on an approach concerning the pleasures of life.
Features
The essential feature is the constant experimentation with language and forms that lead to the renewal of poetic creation. Each poem was unique and surprising. It recovered old meters and used learned words to increase the sonority of the verses. It used feet such as the hexameter, Latin stress, and free verse. The search for Impressionist effects resulted in full-color compositions and synesthesia. The desire to escape into space and time led them to exotic or classic themes. In Spain, the influence entered through Bécquer and Rubén Darío, although there was already an announcement. Spain is grown in a poem focusing on the problems of people who are associated with the Generation of ’98.
Rubén Darío
The publication of his work “Azul” in 1888 represents a change in the literary scene. It contained stories and poems in which he invents a fantasy world of princesses, heir to French poetry. Its lexicon is refined and cultured and even becomes difficult to understand. This book is full of amazing pictures and colorful adjectives. His next play, “Prosas Profanas”, is the fullness of formal Modernism: sumptuously expressive, neologisms, and metric innovations.
Antonio Machado
For Antonio, thought is intuition, something completely opposite of logical thinking based on concepts. The most characteristic of his poetry is cutting his early influences, intimate romanticism, his concern for the problems of Spain, and its symbolism. The issues which recur in his work are shared by all the poets of the time.
Topics
Time, Castile, New Spain, the Castilian and Andalusian landscape. Machado uses a simple and clean style, far from the exuberant richness of other Modernists, though not simplistic. It is not easy to interpret and draws on the variety of verses. Machado is characteristic of the adjective setter.
Poetic Work of Antonio Machado
Three stages:
- First: A subjective poetry cultivated in “Soledades”.
- Second: Castilian regenerationist Castile represented by fields. It turns outwards.
- Third: Philosophical poetry and folk songs in “Campos de Castilla”.
Juan Ramón Jiménez
A literary innovator, he maintained lasting friendships with the poets of the time and was linked to the beginnings of this movement. His work then undergoes changes and rejection. His writing is characterized by a desire for full nudity and poetic expression.
Steps
- Sensory Poetry: Marked by melancholy, aestheticism, and decadence with themes like death (e.g., “Arias Tristes”).
- Intellectual Poetry: Two events mark its transformation: knowledge of Zenobia, his wife, and that of Ortega y Gasset, who makes his previous turn in vitalism melancholy. This is pure flame poetry that is based on the search for the exact name of things.
- Essential Poetry: Written in exile, in works such as “Espacio”, it is very difficult and is constructed without rhyme or verse with only irrational images.