Spanish Post-War Poetry: From Anguish to Social Realism
Post-War Poetry
1944 marks the start of a violent awakening in Spanish poetry. Dámaso Alonso’s (1898-1990) Children of Wrath, a book of torn, uprooted poetry, not based on traditional experiences like religion, home, politics, or family, reflected this. His conversational tone captured the existential angst of the 1940s. Another poet of the Generation of ’27, Vicente Aleixandre, pointed the direction of poetry at this time with Shadow of Paradise (1944), where pain is expressed from the perspective of paradise lost and humanity far from its destiny.
Espadaña Magazine and Committed Poetry
The magazine Espadaña highlighted two of its founders: Victoriano Crémer (1906) and Eugenio de Nora León (1923). Both embraced a poetry committed to and rooted in the society of their time. De Nora, in 1946, clandestinely published People Captive, alluding to the Civil War and the pain of the defeated. Both poets wrote impure and humanized poetry, connecting with Pablo Neruda’s style of the 1930s and addressing labor issues. They sometimes clashed with the censorship of the time.
Blas de Otero and Existential Anguish
The real shock in post-war poetry arrived with the work of Bilbao’s Blas de Otero (1916-1979). In 1942, he published Spiritual Canticle, with clear echoes of San Juan de la Cruz, whose centenary was celebrated that year. A spiritual crisis led him to existential, uprooted, and expressionist poetry. The second edition of Ancia followed. Angel Fiercely Human (1950) and Expand Consciousness (1951) were expanded in 1958 into a book that linked the first syllable of the first title with the second-to-last of the last: Ancia (1958), to which he added 36 unpublished poems. He dignified the sonnet, beginning with: “It’s the vast majority of foliage.” Blas de Otero’s work turned against all religious poetry of his time and the traditional image of God.
A spiritual crisis leads to existential, uprooted, and expressionist poetry. The second edition of this spring was Ancia. Angel Fiercely Human (1950) and Expand Consciousness (1951) were expanded in 1958 into a book that would link the first syllable of the first with the second from last: Ancia (1958), to which he would add 36 unpublished poems. He dignified the sonnet, with the initial: “It’s the vast majority of foliage.” The work of Blas de Otero turns against all religious poetry of its time and the traditional image of God.
Social Poetry and its Discontents
In the last years of the early 1940s, a strong intention arose to denounce the injustices, taking a critical approach to the triumphant regime, intending to be an effective tool for struggle. This poetry was sometimes disparagingly called “social poetry,” alluding to its perceived lack of refinement and aesthetic values. The most important poets of this trend are Victoriano Crémer (one of the promoters of the magazine Espadaña), José Hierro, Gabriel Celaya, and Blas de Otero.
The main themes of social poetry are:
- The memory of the horrors and violence of war (in contrast to the avoidance of the previous trend).
- Commitment to the society that suffered the war.
- The memory of Spain, far from death or exile.
- The landscape of Spain (used symbolically, in the manner of Machado).
- The city and its dehumanizing consequences.
- Social injustice.
Social poetry, like the novel of the same orientation, entered a crisis during the 1950s, and soon new paths were sought. In 1953, Claudio Rodríguez published Don de la ebriedad, and in 1958, Conjuros. These books, together with those of other authors of the so-called Generation of ’50, involve clear skepticism about social poetry, a disappointment in its effectiveness in achieving social change.