Spanish Poetry After the Civil War: Trends and Evolution
Spanish Poetry After the Civil War
At the end of the war, the cultural outlook was bleak: death, exile. In 1939, the practice resulted in a near-zero output of poetry in Spain. Lorca and Machado were dead, and much of the Generation of ’27 was exiled. The Silver Age had reached its tragic end. Between 1939 and 1975, Spain lived under the dictatorship of General Franco. The postwar period was characterized by international isolation and political repression. The poets who remained in Spain either aligned with the ideology of the victors or remained in internal exile, waiting to express their anger and pain. In the 1950s, economic development began, and living conditions improved. However, in the 1970s, there were hardly any political changes. After Franco’s death, poetry returned to the expression of personal experience.
In the years of the transition, the monarchy was reinstated with Juan Carlos I, and a democratic system was implemented. In these years, poets from different backgrounds with very different poetic ideas emerged.
1.1 The Poetry of the Post-War: 40 Years
The cultural panorama presented various poetic trends of the period:
- The poetry of Miguel Hernandez. After some early formalist work, he began to explore his favorite themes—life, love, and death—especially in the form of sonnets: Wind of the People (1937).
- Rooted Poetry: The Escorial journals and poets who gathered around Garcilaso defended a classical poetry. Some of their themes were nostalgia and romantic or religious experiences.
- Uprooted Poetry: The magazine Espadaña, influenced by existentialist philosophy, advocated a more direct poetry, committed to human concerns.
- Some fringe journals, such as Song, served as an expression for poets who were inspired by the careful poetry of the pre-war period. For its part, the Postismo, sought to break with the avant-garde.
- Two books of great importance were published: Shadow of Paradise by Vicente Aleixandre and Children of Wrath by Damaso Alonso. The first is an exaltation of nature that man is determined to destroy. Children of Wrath reflects the existential malaise of the time, the result of anguish and anger, injustice, and a lexicon filled with anti-poetic words, meaning discomfort, and euphemisms born in the verses.
1.2 The Social Poetry of the 50s
By 1950, the boom of so-called social poetry took hold. It aimed to show the true reality of man and the country. Its members denounced injustices, social inequalities, and the lack of political freedom. Poetry became an instrument to transform the world.
This conception of poetry led to some thematic and formal characteristics:
- The subject matter is the foundation on which the poem intends to testify. It focused on the economic difficulties of the lower classes and encouraged labor solidarity and revolutionary struggle.
- The ideal audience was the vast majority.
- In order to reach a wide audience, conversational and direct language was used. The abundance of poets and readers, and the lack of social and economic changes, explain the rapid depletion of social poetry.
However, from today’s perspective, we find some of the best poems of the 20th century in Iberian songs.
The Poetry of the Sixties Until Today
In the mid-1950s, a new group of poets emerged who returned to concerns about the artistic character of poetry.
Promotion of the Sixties
The most important poets of this generation include José Agustín Goytisolo, Jaime Gil de Viedma, and Félix Grande, among others.
In their first books, the social influence of poets like Antonio Machado appeared and became an ethical and aesthetic concern.
- Their concept of poetry changed: the objective was no longer communication with a wide public. Poetry was conceived as a means of knowledge of reality and personal experiences, which allowed light into the dark areas of the human being.
- The topics leaned toward intimacy and the recreation of individual experience: hence the denomination of the poetry of this current as ‘experience’.
- Another novelty was the treatment of language: the colloquial tone rose to an artistic level. It sought an individual style, in which irony and humor were cozy with the reader.
Urbanism is treated by Angel Gonzalez, and memory by Valente.