20th Century Spanish Literature: From Modernism to the Avant-Garde
The Avant-Garde
Avant-garde movements, also known as isms, were not a homogeneous group. The most significant are:
- Surrealism: Trying to overcome rationality through the unconscious and imagination.
- Dada: Absurd art, defending a product of chance.
- Ultraism: Reaction against modernist ornamentation, seeking innovative and expressive metaphors.
Despite their heterogeneity, they have several common features:
- A break with the traditional conception of beauty.
- Total freedom in creation.
- Desire for novelty.
Avant-garde movements represent a radical change from Modernism.
Modernism
Modernists are concerned with the search for exquisite beauty and a sensual reality. For the modernist, the present is ugly and vulgar, so they escape to the past or an exotic world.
Modernism defines a sensual style, especially in poetry, where music and form have huge importance. The poet only cares for the expression of elegance and good taste.
Avant-Garde vs. Traditional Beauty
Avant-garde movements want to change the current aesthetic to a groundbreaking and provocative one. They interpret reality with new eyes, searching for topics relevant to modern humans. They bet on total freedom in form and versification, experimenting with all forms of expression and blurring the lines between art forms.
The Generation of ’27
This is the most important literary group of 20th century Spain. It’s composed of poets born at the turn of the century, with their activity peaking around 1927. Due to its quantity and quality, it’s also called the Silver Age. The most prominent members are: Lorca, Alberti, Cernuda, Salinas, and Altolaguirre.
These poets were in close contact, especially from 1920 to 1936. The Residencia de Estudiantes in Madrid played an important role in their relationships. Despite significant differences in style, they share common features:
- Influence of avant-garde movements.
- Appreciation for literary tradition, both popular and cultured.
- Desire for originality, innovation, and poetic renewal.
- Purity of art and pursuit of perfection (especially in the early years).
- Presence of dreamlike elements.
- Supremacy of surreal metaphors.
This last feature makes the Generation of ’27 different from the avant-garde movements. While the avant-garde fought against tradition, the Generation of ’27 was inspired by it and sought to renew it.
Themes
- Death: Very present in the poets of ’27. In some compositions, it’s accepted with a courageous attitude as a natural fact. In others, the poet expresses pain and inconsolable frustration.
- Love: Shows two lines: one influenced by traditional poetry (both cultured – Góngora, Bécquer – and popular) and the other influenced by avant-garde movements.
- Landscape: The poets of ’27, like those of ’98, also sing about the Spanish landscape, particularly Andalusia.
- Social Concerns: These poets witnessed two world wars and suffered the Spanish Civil War, which condemned many of them to exile. Hence, their poems reflect political criticism, the horror of war, the desire for freedom, and the longing for a lost homeland.
Styles
It’s difficult to speak of a common style for the entire Generation of ’27, given the heterogeneity of the group. However, the poetic evolution of the members is similar. Almost everyone starts with pure poetry (concerned with formal beauty), which over time loses its obsession with form and enhances its interest in human and social problems.
Arguably, the style of the Generation of ’27 is distinguished by its formal simplicity and is characterized by:
- Using popular metric forms, such as the romance and the quatrain.
- Influence of the Golden Age in the use of hendecasyllables, sonnets, and authors like Bécquer and Machado.
- Creation of a poetic language dominated by metaphors and images.
- From 1927, there’s a fatigue with formalism, and poets evolve towards social issues and innovative metrics, such as free verse.
Rafael Alberti
Along with Federico García Lorca, Alberti best represents the neo-traditional line of the Generation of ’27. His poetry was inspired by ballads and lyrical songs, rescuing themes and stanzas from Spanish folklore and adapting them to his style. Alberti’s poetry is also notable for its political commitment to Communism, which led him into exile after the Civil War. Important works include Marinero en tierra and El poeta en la calle.
Federico García Lorca
Considered a genius of the Generation of ’27, Lorca stands out in both poetry and theater, where he’s considered one of the top literary figures of the 20th century. Lorca opens the way to neopopularism. His poems combine traditional poetry with avant-garde and surreal elements, resulting in an original and lyrical style. In his poetry and theater, metaphors and symbols play an important role: poetic elements (blood, moon, horse) that summarize human conflicts. Notable poetry collections include Romancero gitano and Poema del cante jondo.
Theater in the Early 20th Century
Spanish theater in the first third of the 20th century had two clearly differentiated trends: traditional and commercial theater (bourgeois in character) and innovative theater (influenced by avant-garde movements).
The Traditional Theater
Theater at this time was a major source of leisure and a profitable business. Many plays were represented and consumed by a large public. This commercial theater is characterized by:
- Bourgeois character: Its themes were either funny or dramatic.
- Entertainment purpose: It wasn’t intended to criticize or pose a clear moral stance.
Two subgenres stand out:
- Bourgeois comedy: Works with mild social satire. The main exponent is Jacinto Benavente.
- Costumbrista theater: Offered a quaint and comical vision of specific regions and social classes. Carlos Arniches and the Álvarez Quintero brothers are prominent figures.
The Innovative Theater
Some playwrights opted for a more original and creative style. Ramón María del Valle-Inclán is considered the restorer of contemporary Spanish drama. His theater presents an anti-bourgeois character and a tendency towards poetic and lyrical dreaminess.
The most prominent figure is Federico García Lorca, who intensified his theatrical work from the 1930s as both author and director. His successful career was cut short by his untimely death in 1936. His most notable plays include Bodas de sangre, Yerma, and La casa de Bernarda Alba. His farces, like La zapatera prodigiosa, also stand out for their comical tone.
Main features of Lorca’s theater:
- Themes: Focus on the great issues of human beings: unsatisfied desire, the fight against tyranny, etc.
- Characters: Always have a dramatic, moving component. The protagonists are usually women frustrated by the inability to achieve their desires.
- Style: Distinguished by its simple form, plasticity, and use of rural vocabulary.