The Legacy of the Generation of ’27
Generation of ’27 – Introduction
The Generation of ’27, a term coined by Dámaso Alonso, refers to a group of influential Spanish poets born between 1891 and 1905. These poets, including Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Federico García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Luis Cernuda, Dámaso Alonso, and Manuel Altolaguirre, shared a strong friendship and cultural exchange, particularly through their time at the Student Residence in Madrid. They were university professors with similar educational backgrounds, influenced by Juan Ramón Jiménez and, to a lesser extent, Luis de Góngora.
Characteristics of the Generation of ’27
- Synthesis of tradition and avant-garde.
- Neopopularism, paying attention to Góngora, Garcilaso, Lope de Vega, and Quevedo.
- Influence of Romanticism (Bécquer, Rubén Darío), Machado, Surrealism, and Creationism.
- Mentored by Juan Ramón Jiménez, embracing pure poetry.
- Influenced by Ortega y Gasset’s theories on the dehumanization of art.
- Dissemination of their work through literary magazines and editorial efforts (Emilio Prados and Manuel Altolaguirre).
- Major themes: love (including homosexual love), the city (both its artistic environment and negative urban development), and nature.
- Metric diversity: traditional forms and free verse.
- Cultivated imagery (metaphor) relating similar objects to evoke emotions.
- Poetic evolution through stages: initiation, uprooted postmodernism, and interior/exterior uprooting.
Key Figures of the Generation of ’27
Pedro Salinas (1891-1951)
Poet and professor, promoted literature through magazines. Exiled during the Civil War, died in the USA. His poetry focused on authenticity, beauty, and wit, exploring themes of love and life with perfection and expressive containment. Used contrast, images, and symbols. Preferred short verses in his second stage, revealing influences of pure poetry, Juan Ramón Jiménez, and Futurism. Notable works include the love trilogy: La voz a ti debida, Razón de amor, and Largo lamento.
Jorge Guillén (1893-1984)
Professor and critic, received the Cervantes Prize in 1976. His work, Cántico, is a unified structure built around the numbers three and five, exploring themes of contemplation, reality, being, love, time, chance, chaos, pain, memory, and wholeness. Used simple syntax with nominal style and exclamations. Employed various metric forms: hendecasyllable, romance, sextina, sonnet, stanza, and décima.
Gerardo Diego (1896-1987)
Poet and professor, received the National Literature Prize in 1925 and the Cervantes Prize in 1979. His poetry combined avant-garde and traditional metaphors, exploring themes of love, landscape, personal memories, bulls, religion, and music. His first stage showed traditional influences (Bécquer, Juan Ramón Jiménez), while his second stage embraced absolute poetry with cutting-edge imagery.
Vicente Aleixandre (1898-1984)
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1977. His poetry explored love, erotic impulse, vitality, and destruction, with nature as a source of life. Used Surrealism with dreamlike and irrational images. Employed parallel syntactic and lexical structures, varied rhythm, accent distribution, rhyme, and repetition. His works include Ámbito (pre-war) and Sombra del Paraíso (post-war).
Dámaso Alonso (1898-1990)
Professor and literary critic, received the Cervantes Prize in 1978. His study of Góngora’s poetic language was groundbreaking. His poetry, created in bursts, included pre-war poems and Hijos de la ira (1944), a significant post-war work.
Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)
Poet and playwright, studied popular traditions. His personality reflected vitality and inner discomfort. His poetry explored tragic fate, love, sex, death, childhood, and social issues. Combined popular poetry with classical forms, using bold metaphors, metonymy, and symbols. Notable works include Romancero Gitano, Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, and Poeta en Nueva York.