The Literary Avant-Garde and the Generation of ’27

Posted on Sep 17, 2024 in Latin

Literary Avant-Garde in the Early Twentieth Century

The first decades of the twentieth century (until the outbreak of World War II, approximately) were a period of profound renewal and upheaval in the various arts, including literature. This period saw the rise of leading movements (the so-called “isms”) that challenged supporters of traditional art and literature. Common characteristics of these movements include:

  • Open opposition to previous literature and art, aspiring to create works regardless of previous literary experiences.
  • A desire to overcome barriers between various arts (literature, music, art, etc.) and between different literary genres.
  • A supranational nature, not linked to a specific literary tradition.
  • Rejection of realism in literature, advocating for interpretation of reality according to the artist’s subjectivity rather than mere reproduction.
  • A desire to provoke and offend with works and attitudes contrary to the dominant aesthetic (and often moral) values of the time.

Surrealism

The avant-garde art movement that most influenced art (painting, sculpture, film) and literature worldwide from the 1920s onward, especially in poetry, is Surrealism. Surrealism was created by a number of French poets, including Louis Aragon, Paul Eluard, and Benjamin Péret, led by André Breton, who published the first Surrealist Manifesto in 1924.

Surrealism was not intended as a simple artistic renewal movement but sought a full revolution, a transformation of life, both individually and collectively. It hoped to release the creative power of humankind, which should be free from the control of reason, as reason is considered contaminated by education, social prejudice, etc.

Surrealists employed different procedures to express uncontrolled, spontaneous moods and deep, subconscious impulses (fears, obsessions, desires, etc.) of human beings. In a surrealist poem, objects, concepts, or feelings that reason kept separate are mixed; there are free associations of words and unexpected, unusual metaphors, and even violent, shocking, and disgusting images. This language does not address reason but rather aims to arouse unconscious reactions in the reader. Among the various Surrealist “techniques” are the following:

  • Automatic writing: Writing without reflection, recording everything that comes to mind, even if it lacks logic or consists of inconsistent associations of objects.
  • Chaotic enumeration: Grouping elements with no apparent relation.
  • Collage: Grouping random phrases taken from other literary works, newspapers, pieces of speech, etc.
  • Dream images: Giving great importance to dreams, in which the subconscious world manifests itself. Notable dream images include those expressing:
    • Uncertainty about individual identity, mutilation, castration, loss of face, etc.
    • Uncertainty concerning the position of individuals: airlines, falls, escapes, sudden changes in environment, etc.
    • Confusion between different beings: animalization, commodification, rebellions of animals or objects, objects appearing soft or semi-human, the presence of children (dolls, mannequins, etc.).
    • Presence of an underground world, hidden caves, cellars, hatches, cabinets, sewers, etc.
  • Primitivism: Prizing creations associated with mental illness, children, and primitive cultures to reflect instinctive attitudes not subject to Western rationalism.

Although there were some authors in Spain (especially in the Canary Islands) who mimicked the procedures of the French Surrealists, the most interesting aspect was the influence of Surrealism on various works of the Generation of ’27, written between 1928 and the beginning of the Civil War. Notable examples include Sobre los ángeles (1928) by Alberti, Poeta en Nueva York (1930) by García Lorca, La destrucción o el amor (1933) by Vicente Aleixandre, and Los placeres prohibidos (1931) by Luis Cernuda. These authors did not adopt all the techniques of French Surrealism; they rarely practiced automatic writing or other mechanisms of unconscious creation. However, there was a liberation of poetic images, dispensing with logic. In addition, the poets of ’27 shared with the French Surrealists a rebellious attitude against social norms and dominant moral values (religious, sexual, etc.).

This effect was also related to the use of “free verse,” poetry without a fixed meter or rhyme, usually quite long (but also including very short verses). This type of versification was considered the most appropriate for expressing inner impulses spontaneously.

The Generation of ’27 as a Literary Generation

In the mid-1920s, a group of writers emerged who would become the most important force in twentieth-century Spanish poetry: the Generation of ’27. It has been argued that the poets of ’27 constitute a true literary generation. It is rather a poetic group that is part of a broader intellectual generation, which also included novelists, artists, filmmakers, historians, etc. However, the term “Generation of ’27” has been established to designate a relatively small group of poets: Pedro Salinas (1892-1951), Jorge Guillén (1893-1984), Gerardo Diego (1896-1987), Dámaso Alonso (1898-1990), Vicente Aleixandre (1898-1984, Nobel Prize for Literature in 1977), Federico García Lorca (1898-1936), Emilio Prados (1899-1962), Luis Cernuda (1902-1963), Rafael Alberti (1902-1999), and Manuel Altolaguirre (1905-1959). In this sense, we must consider the following factors:

  • There was no major event to unite them, as the most important historical events they lived through (the Second Republic, the Civil War, exile) occurred after the formation of the literary group.
  • There was no leader among them, although some, like García Lorca, had an outstanding personality.
  • The age difference between the oldest, Pedro Salinas, born in 1891, and the youngest, Manuel Altolaguirre, born in 1905, was significant but not excessive. Notably, three of these writers, Federico García Lorca, Dámaso Alonso, and Vicente Aleixandre, were born in the same year: 1898.
  • They were strongly opposed to the literature that preceded them. On the contrary, they admired writers of the Generation of ’98 and Modernism, as well as the Noucentists, and considered Juan Ramón Jiménez their teacher.
  • However, they formed a cohesive group; these authors were friends and collaborated on various activities:
    • Cultural activities at the Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid (conferences, exhibitions, theater, etc.). García Lorca and Emilio Prados lived in this house (as did the painter Salvador Dalí and filmmaker Luis Buñuel, closely related to Lorca in his youth), and others frequented it.
    • Celebration in 1927 of the tercentenary of the death of Góngora, which gave the group its name.
    • Cultural magazines such as Revista de Occidente, La Gaceta Literaria, Litoral (founded by Altolaguirre), Carmen (founded by Gerardo Diego), etc.
    • Poetic anthologies, such as those edited by Gerardo Diego in 1932 and 1934.

Literary Genres in the Generation of ’27

Although the authors of ’27 were, above all, great poets, some of them also excelled in other genres. Their major contributions, apart from poetry, were in:

Essay

Several poets of ’27 (Salinas, Guillén, Alonso, Cernuda) were prominent academics, both in Spain and abroad, and made important contributions to literary studies. In this area, Pedro Salinas stands out, with his classic works on Spanish literature (e.g., Jorge Manrique o tradición y originalidad) and contemporary literature (e.g., essays in Literatura española siglo XX), and Dámaso Alonso, an expert on Spanish Golden Age literature, particularly the poetry of Góngora.

Outside the essay genre itself, we must also mention the memoirs, letters, literary portraits, etc., of some of these poets. In this area, the most important work is La arboleda perdida by Alberti, perhaps the most brilliant book of memoirs in the history of Spanish literature.

Literary Translation

The Generation of ’27 produced valuable translations of literature, both poetry and prose, introducing important foreign authors to Spain. This was the case, among others, with Pedro Salinas, who translated part of the monumental narrative series In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust from French; Jorge Guillén, translator of the long poem The Graveyard by the Sea by the Frenchman Paul Valéry; Dámaso Alonso, who produced the first Spanish version of one of the novels by Irish writer James Joyce (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man); Luis Cernuda, who translated several classic and Romantic English and German poets; and Manuel Altolaguirre, author of versions of English Romantic poets.

Theater

Some of the writers of ’27 devoted themselves to writing plays, but their works tend to emphasize lyricism more than strictly dramatic qualities.

This applies to the works of Salinas (mostly short, one-act pieces with love or satirical themes) and Alberti. Alberti’s works can be divided into two thematic groups: political theater (notably Noche de guerra en el Museo del Prado, written in 1956) and poetic drama (with works like the allegorical tragedy El hombre deshabitado, 1930, or the farce Los ojos del difunto, 1944).

The case of García Lorca is quite different. Lorca’s theater, while retaining all the lyrical intensity of his poetry, also has enormous dramatic value. Lorca is one of the best Spanish playwrights of all time and has probably only been surpassed by Valle-Inclán in the twentieth century.

Lorca’s production stands out for its thematic unity; in all his works, the same tragic conflict is expressed in different situations and with different formal treatments: the frustration of the protagonists’ desires, condemned to a sterile life or driven to death.

Although Lorca began writing plays early on, his work as a playwright intensified considerably in his later years, from 1930 onward, a period in which he composed his best works. They can be classified into three generic groups:

  • Farces: Works that blend and contrast lyrical and grotesque elements, showing the influence of Valle-Inclán’s esperpento. This genre includes, for example, The Shoemaker’s Prodigious Wife (1930) and The Love of Don Perlimplín and Belisa in the Garden (1931).
  • Surreal dramas: As in his poetry (with Poet in New York), Lorca also adopted Surrealist procedures in his theater, attempting to express his deepest inner conflicts, such as homosexuality, which was very problematic from the point of view of social acceptance in the Spain of his time. Surreal dramas (like The Public, 1930, or When Five Years Pass, 1931) have enormous literary value, but their formal innovations prevented them from being staged at the time.
  • Rural tragedies: In these works (Blood Wedding, 1933, Yerma, 1934, Doña Rosita the Spinster, 1935, The House of Bernarda Alba, 1936), the failure of the impulses of love and desire for freedom is manifested with great realism and simplicity of plot, but at the same time with great lyrical intensity, in a series of women overwhelmed by social conventions and oppressed by the principle of authority.

Evolution of the Poets of the Generation of ’27

Simplifying matters, we can identify three main stages:

Stage 1: Up to 1927

Most poets of ’27 had an experimental attitude in their early years. In these years, their poetry reflects the type of art described by Ortega y Gasset in his essay “The Dehumanization of Art.” It is a formalist, anti-sentimental poetry. Ortega promoted the works of these authors. In this line, the influence of avant-garde creations like Ultraism and Creationism is evident. The key technical tool of this poetry is imagery, especially metaphors.

But the basic model at this stage was the poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez. His influence on the poets of ’27 was highly personal. This influence was mainly seen in the following aspects:

  • “Pure” poetry, which hardly introduced ideological, social, or biographical elements.
  • High aesthetic requirements: it advocates for rigorous, highly elaborate poetry, distinct from prose.
  • Metric influences: the poets of ’27 cultivated two types of stanzas that Juan Ramón Jiménez also used:
    • Short, popular ditties.
    • Irregular stanzas, usually brief, consisting of free verse, usually shorter.

After this first stage, the influence of Juan Ramón declined.

Another aspect of the poetic attitude of the members of ’27 was their love of traditional Spanish lyric poetry. Several poets of ’27, including Dámaso Alonso and Gerardo Diego, and above all Lorca (in books such as Canciones and Poema del cante jondo) and Alberti (Marinero en tierra, La amante, etc.), wrote poems that drew on the popular tradition from the 15th to the 17th centuries (both found in the anonymous cancioneros and romanceros, as well as in the works of artists such as Gil Vicente and Lope de Vega, among others). Although this type of poetry contains inherently “human” values, the poets of ’27 used it as a means of formal experimentation, avoiding the presence of anecdotal and biographical content in their poetry.

In the conception of poetry as a succession of brilliant images, predominant in this stage among the authors of ’27, the influence of the Baroque poet Luis de Góngora was also important. The poets of ’27 saw that Góngora’s work had already achieved some of their major poetic goals: high metrical demands, stylistic invention, the creation of a poetic world very different from the real world, the creation of original metaphors, etc.

The homage to Góngora in 1927 was an act of affirmation of their existence as a group of poets who were beginning to excel, while also representing an attack on institutions like the Royal Academy and on anti-Góngora literary critics.

The admiration for Góngora and other classical authors, along with a love of metaphor, encouraged the cultivation of classical metrical forms (sonnets, décimas, silvas, triplets, etc.).

Apart from the pervasive influence, there were direct imitations of Góngora’s complicated style in some specific cases. This occurred in Fábula de Equis y Zeda by Gerardo Diego, which combines features of Góngora’s style with Creationism, and in the Tercera soledad (included in the book Cal y canto) by Alberti, which claims to be a continuation of Góngora’s own “Soledades.”

Stage 2: From 1928 to the Civil War

In the late 1920s, a certain weariness with excessive formalism and the lack of human content in poetry began to be felt. In this context, Surrealism was introduced in Spain. Surrealism, unlike other art movements, does not offer a cold and dehumanizing approach but seeks to give expression to all human feelings and concerns, even the most hidden.

Many of the poets of ’27 were influenced by Surrealism; Jorge Guillén was the one who stuck longest with an intellectual, pure poetry in the Juan Ramón Jiménez line.

The great themes of poetry, and especially the theme of love, reappeared with great intensity in these years. Salinas’s books from this period are also exclusively about love: La voz a ti debida and Razón de amor. However, the vision of love in Pedro Salinas’s poetry is far removed from Romantic approaches and connects more with Renaissance Neoplatonism.

Political and social issues also entered poetry. Several poets, especially Alberti (in books like El poeta en la calle), but also others such as García Lorca, Cernuda, and Emilio Prados, wrote combative, revolutionary poetry during the years of the Republic. At the outbreak of the Civil War, almost all the poets of ’27 sided with the Republican party and expressed that attitude in their poetry.