The Avant-Garde and the Generation of ’27
The Avant-Garde Literary Movements in Spain
The first series of avant-garde literary movements were prominent in the first third of the 20th century, mostly originating outside of Spain. These avant-garde movements are also known as isms, due to the common suffix in their names. There were many movements, although most of them have almost disappeared. The most notable include: Surrealism, Creationism, Cubism, Ultraism, Dadaism, and Futurism.
Characteristics of the Avant-Garde
- Love of novelty
- Ephemeral character
- Rejection of 19th-century literature
- Use of current colloquial language
- Frequent use of humor
The literary magazines of the time frequently used bold and unique styles to make these movements known, along with their works and manifestos. Many important magazines were founded, including: Ultra, Grecia, Cervantes, Plural, Cosmópolis, Proa, Tableros de Poesía, and Costa.
The Principal Movements
Creationism
Creationism aimed to imitate melody through words. It used calligraphy and gave importance to the implied meaning of words. Its principal representatives were Vicente Huidobro and Gerardo Diego.
Surrealism
Surrealism is based on free association and dream states. They used dream images and metaphors in their writing. They were heavily influenced by psychoanalysis and the works of Sigmund Freud. Their principal representatives were André Breton, Federico García Lorca, and Vicente Aleixandre. Most of the poets of the Generation of ’27 wrote some works or poems in the Surrealist style.
Ultraism
Ultraism originated in Seville and spread through the magazine Grecia. It is characterized by its love of novelty, the use of metaphors, and the use of bold and new calligraphy. Its principal representatives were Guillermo de la Torre and Adriano del Valle.
Ramón Gómez de la Serna
Ramón Gómez de la Serna was one of the principal representatives and promoters of the avant-garde in Spain. He directed and collaborated on several literary magazines. He was the creator of a new literary genre that he called greguería. These are short sentences that mix humor and metaphor; they are similar to proverbs or aphorisms. His notable works include Automoribundia.
Generation of ’27
A literary generation is a group of writers who were born at about the same time and were moved by an event of their time, faced the same problems, and reacted similarly to them.
Characteristics of the Generation of ’27
A Group of Writers
The main representatives of the group are Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Dámaso Alonso, Vicente Aleixandre, Miguel Hernández, and Luis Cernuda.
Born Around the Same Time
Between the youngest, Cernuda, and the oldest, Salinas, there is only a nine-year age difference.
Driven by an Event
The event that united them and gave them their name was a tribute to Luis de Góngora that the group organized in Seville in 1927, to commemorate the tercentenary of his death. The influence of Juan Ramón Jiménez is also noteworthy.
Similar Reaction
They all felt the need to find a poetic language that better expressed the issues they addressed.
Tradition and Avant-Garde
While they wanted to find new poetic paths, they did not break with Spanish traditions and felt admiration for Góngora’s poetic language, for the classics, and for popular forms like the romance. At the same time, the avant-garde movements, especially Surrealism, exerted a great influence on the Generation of ’27. Surrealist writers explored the world of the unconscious and aimed to achieve an absolute beauty that is beyond reality.
Intent
They tried to find aesthetic beauty through imagery. They intended to eliminate anything from the poem that was not beauty, thus achieving pure poetry. They wanted to represent reality without describing it, removing anything that was not poetry.
Verses by León Felipe
“Undo this verse. Remove the fringes of rhyme […] and if you still have anything left, that is poetry.”
Themes
They felt a special interest in the great affairs of humanity, such as love, death, and fate, as well as themes rooted in popular culture.
Song of the Rider (Federico García Lorca)
“Black horse, where are you taking your dead rider?”
Style
They were primarily concerned with linguistic expression and sought a language full of lyricism.
Versification
They used traditional stanzas (romance, copla…) and classical forms (sonnet, terceto…). They also used free verse and sought rhythm through the repetition of words, syntactic patterns, or parallelism of ideas.
The Dove (Rafael Alberti)
“The dove was mistaken; she was mistaken. Because she was going north, she went south, she believed that wheat was water, she was wrong.”
Authors
1. Gerardo Diego
A large part of his extensive poetic production revolves around traditional themes. He cultivated the most varied subjects: love, religion, music… in the form of ballads and sonnets. His works include: The Romance of the Bride, Image, Manual of Foams, Human Verses, Divine Verses, Landscape with Figures, Moral Odes, Poetry of Creation.
Romance of the Duero (Gerardo Diego)
“River Duero, River Duero, no one accompanies you downstream, no one stops to hear your eternal stanza of water.”
2. Pedro Salinas
The central theme of his work is love. His most important work, The Voice Due to You, is a long love poem in which the poet seeks the beloved beyond the real world, beyond the person he loves. The real world and the beloved are denied by the poet to create an ideal image of the woman. The beloved becomes a pure concept. He also wrote other books of poems such as Presagios, Razón de Amor, Seguro Azar….
Behind, Beyond (Pedro Salinas)
You can read an excerpt from “The Voice Due to You.” The poet seeks the beloved behind people, behind things, and even behind the poet himself, because he is not looking for a specific person, but an ideal, a concept.
“Yes, I’m looking for the person behind you. Not your name, not your image, even if it’s painted. Behind, behind, beyond.”
3. Rafael Alberti
In 1925 he published Sailor on Land, which reflects his nostalgia for his homeland, which he remembers from Madrid. In this same vein, he also wrote: The Dawn of the Wallflower, The Lover. In 1928, his work On the Angels appears, which breaks with traditional poetic language and uses surrealist techniques.
Poetry (Rafael Alberti)
“What do you think the river thinks, when it enters the sea, your river?”
4. Federico García Lorca
He was a man of overwhelming personality and extraordinary creative capacity. Despite his enormous sympathy and grace, despite his ability to live intensely at all times, a tragic tone prevails in his poetry and the presence of death surrounds his poetry like a premonition. He created highly original and expressive metaphors and images, although sometimes difficult to explain. In his themes, elements of Andalusian folklore are constantly reworked by the poet, who almost always prefers the saddest or most tragic features. His most important lyrical works are Songs, Gypsy Ballads, and Poem of the Cante Jondo. In this last book, Lorca shows a special sympathy for the marginalized and persecuted, gypsies and bandits. His theatrical production touches on two themes: the popular, with works such as Mariana Pineda, and the amorous passions of women, such as Blood Wedding, The House of Bernarda Alba, and Doña Rosita the Spinster.
The Brawl (Federico García Lorca)
“Thin blood of opposing fish. A harsh light shines like the sour green of the cut tablecloth, enraged horsemen and profiles.”
5. Vicente Aleixandre
All of his work revolves around humanity, which he conceives of as pessimistic and anxious. This view of humanity leads him to deal with themes such as love, life, passions, feelings, and death in his poetry. His most famous books of poems are: Destruction or Love, Shadow of Paradise, History of the Heart.
He is the Smallest (Vicente Aleixandre)
“He is the smallest of all, the last. But don’t say anything, let him play. He is smaller than the others, and he is a quiet boy.”
6. Miguel Hernández
Miguel Hernández’s poetry is passionate, full of ardor and vehemence that infect the reader. Among his works we can highlight:
- The Lightning that Never Stops, where love is seen as torture and with a tragic sense.
- The People’s Wind. A book of political poems.
- Elegy for Ramón Sijé, which he dedicated to him after his death.
- Songbook and Ballads of Absences. A collection of poems written in prison, with a new language that marks the beginning of a change in style that his premature death would cut short.
Sad… (Miguel Hernández)
“Sad war, if it is not love the enterprise. Sad, sad.”