Spanish Post-War Literature: Novel, Poetry, Theater
Cela: *The Family of Pascual Duarte* and Social Trends
The Family of Pascual Duarte inaugurated a trend of social novels. The Hive, in 1951, introduces new plot elements (sequence) and sometimes even inaugurated objectivism. The omniscient narrator gives his opinion and utilizes a collective character to reflect life in post-war Madrid. The novel articulates itself in sequences, contrasting the lives of its characters, and has an open ending. The style mixes tones, counteracting irony with lyrical elements, and accumulates adjectives. The prose has a very sharp rhythm, and the sequences begin with the name of the protagonist.
Miguel Delibes: Nature and Human Existence
Miguel Delibes won the Premio Nadal for *The Shadow of the Cypress is Lengthened*. His novels, often set in the countryside, defend man in his natural environment, away from the materialism of the century. He is careful with language, using accurate vocabulary to reproduce genuine popular speech. His style is simple, even in his more experimental works, such as *Five Hours with Mario*, where Mari Carmen talks to her dead husband. Delibes offers a faithful reproduction of colloquial language. Thought flows freely, and memories are mixed with a disordered temporal reading. It obliges an active reader who must order the history.
Post-War Poetry: Rehumanization and Trends
Dehumanization, as described by Ortega y Gasset, was losing weight to rehumanization. The generation of ’27 and the generation of ’36 maintained this during the Civil War. Dámaso Alonso analyzed two trends in poetry: rooted poetry and uprooted poetry. Rooted poetry is not a committed literature, not partisan, and avoids criticism. It returns to classic forms. The writers had a strong Falangist ideology and published in two journals whose names reflected the philosophy they defended: *Escorial* and *Garcilaso*. They used classical verse forms like the sonnet, and timeless themes of death, beauty, love, and landscape. Ideological thought focused on religion and purity. Examples include Leopoldo Panero’s *Written Every Moment* and Luis Rosales’ *Sonnets to the Stone*.
Uprooted Poetry: Anguish and Social Concerns
Uprooted poetry does not have a positive vision of Spanish reality, seeing it as pain and suffering. From a religious and existential standpoint, its main theme is the human being and the anguish of living. Its style differs from rooted poetry: it rejects the harmony of classical forms, while still utilizing the sonnet, and moves toward free verse and colloquial prose. A key example is Dámaso Alonso’s *Children of Wrath*.
Social Poetry: Solidarity and Transformation
Social poetry moves past uprooted poetry, expressing the angst of the individual, to a more solidary position. The poet must take a stand against social inequalities, using his writing as a tool to transform reality. The theme of Spain, alongside injustice and the alienation of much of society, are treated with a colloquial, prosaic, and direct style in an attempt to reach the common man, the vast majority. Examples include José Manuel Caballero Bonald’s *The Iberians* and Gabriel Celaya’s *Songs*, a committed advocate of poetry as testimony to the fact that *as soon as I touch my life*.
Poetic Group of the ’50s: Personal Experience
The young poets who began writing in the 1950s, whose poetry would mark the next decade, began in social poetry. Many of them wrote poems that recalled the dead of the International Brigades. They felt the need to cover themes, most notably their personal experience of life.
Renovation of Theater in Europe
- Surrealist Drama: Alfred Jarry’s *King Ubu*, which renews the late 19th-century theater.
- Epic Theater: Bertolt Brecht, who dominated the European scene for several decades, proposed that the viewer distance themselves from the problems of the characters in the play. This way, the viewer is able to become aware and see that these problems are the same ones they suffer in reality.
- Theater of Cruelty: Antonin Artaud places his characters in limited situations to which they act like they really are.
Current Narrative Trends
Current narrative trends include pure narrations, such as Galdós’s *A Beehive of Light*, recreations like Eduardo Mendoza’s *Literary History*, sleepy voices like Dulce Chacón’s *The Sleeping Voice*, and crime novels like Arturo Pérez-Reverte’s *The Dumas Club*.
Poetry of Experience
The poetry of experience is a poem written in colloquial, realist language that tells a story in everyday urban settings, returning to traditional metrics versus free verse, as used by the newest poets like Luis García Montero in *Cold Flowers*.
Basque Literature
Notable works in Basque literature include Gabriel Aresti’s *Stone and People*, Bernardo Atxaga’s *Obabakoak*, and Unai Elorriaga’s *A Tram Towards SP*.