The Spanish Narrative Since 1940: A Post-War Overview

Posted on Oct 10, 2024 in Latin

UNIT 5: THE SPANISH NARRATIVE SINCE 1940

1. The Post-War Novel (1940s-1950s)

The Spanish Civil War marked a significant break in the country’s literary and cultural landscape. One of the most important consequences of the war was the exile of numerous writers, who formed what became known as the pilgrim Spain. Three thematic issues were common to almost all of them:

  • The memory of the war and its impact on Spain.
  • The experience of living in new places.
  • Reflections on the nature and existence of man.

During the early postwar years, the narrative genre experienced stagnation. Triumphalistic novels, which recounted the war from the victors’ perspective, and novels of avoidance, which focused on emotional matters, were prevalent.

1.1. The 1940s: A Bleak and Troubled Existence

However, two novels emerged in the 1940s that offered a critical vision of reality and broke with the official literature of the time. These realistic novels expressed the individual’s struggle with fate and their context:

  • The Family of Pascual Duarte (Camilo José Cela) initiated the tremendismo movement, which delved into the crudest aspects of reality.
  • Nada (Carmen Laforet) stands out as the most existentialist novel of the period.

1.2. The 1950s: The Generation of Half a Century

The early 1950s witnessed a revival of the narrative genre, with authors like Cela, Miguel Delibes, and Gonzalo Torrente Ballester gaining prominence. However, the crucial development was the emergence of a new generation of young narrators known as the Generation of Half a Century, who developed a new type of novel.

Camilo José Cela’s La Colmena provided the initial impetus, with its unconventional plot structure and narrative perspective, anticipating further innovations. Miguel Delibes, influenced by Cela, employed a simple and sober style in El Camino to portray the Castilian countryside.

The narrators of the mid-century generation embraced a specific concept of literature: literature and reporting should reflect the social situation. Their goal was to raise awareness of injustices and inequalities and contribute to poverty eradication. The author was seen as a being committed to their society.

As a result, realism became the dominant aesthetic. Stories aimed to reflect Spanish reality and served as a tool to denounce social injustices. In terms of narrative technique and style, the social novel adopted objectivism (or behaviorism), characterized by:

  • A hidden narrator who aimed to reflect reality impartially.
  • An absence of psychological analysis in the characters.
  • The predominance of dialogue over narration, reflecting colloquial speech.
  • A simple and understandable style.
  • A collective protagonist, usually a social group.
  • Concentrated time and space, with the action taking place in a short time and limited space.

The topics focused on contemporary social problems faced by the writers.

2. The Novel from the 1960s: A Change of Course

In the 1960s, several factors combined to bring about a change of course in the Spanish novel. On the one hand, Spanish society underwent a major transformation due to industrialization, tourism, and the easing of censorship. On the other hand, the social novel began to decline, and new narrative models emerged, inspired by prominent foreign novelists of the century.

The social realism of the 1950s evolved into the structural novel, which aimed to explore an individual’s personality through their consciousness and social context. With the advent of democracy, the novel returned to traditional storytelling.

2.1. New Ways to Tell

The novel of the 1960s did not abandon critical reflection on Spanish society, but its formal approach was radically new. It presented events in innovative ways, using a rich and inventive vocabulary and creating complex novelistic structures.

Narrative Techniques in the Novel of the 1960s:
  • Changing narrators.
  • Frequent shifts in narrative perspectives.
  • Importance of interior monologue.
  • Chronic disruption of the narrative sequence.
  • Experimentation with the division of the story.
  • Diminished importance of the plot.
  • Characters portrayed as individuals in conflict.
  • Insertion of collages into the narrative.

2.2. Testimony of Social Experimentation

Tiempo de silencio by Luis Martín-Santos was a pivotal novel that changed the course of Spanish narrative during this period. Irony and humor were employed to expose the problems of Spanish society. The innovative nature of the work was evident in its lexical richness, tending towards the Baroque, and its use of religious and scientific vocabulary.