Spanish Poetry of the Early 20th Century
1. SPANISH POETRY OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY
Introduction
In the late nineteenth century, a return to the vigor and excitement of early Romanticism replaced the long period of moderate post-Romantic style. This return was evidenced in works such as Romance (1902) by Emilio Carrere. This modernist era, covering almost four decades, certifies the depletion of modern poetry and prepares the beginning of the contemporary aspiration within the formal renewal. This renewal will be crucial in the subsequent establishment of the post- and pro-Romantic avant-garde movements. The events precipitating the fin de siècle crisis are the loss of the last remaining colonies (1898), the wear on the political and social system of the Restoration, and the growing importance of the labor movement. Also, the current heterodox and anti-academic renewal dominated the European cultural landscape, both in the arts and philosophy or religious doctrine, imposing decadence and general skepticism, referring to a new world quickly taking shape and questioning traditional values. From a formal point of view, the modernist movement is a reaction against realism and naturalism, recovering the most original romantic tenets and renewing the ossified poetic language of the second half of the nineteenth century. This consideration serves to unite authors under the banner of modernist, whether or not they registered as noventayochistas, writing at this time according to more or less defined criteria.
The Modernist Poetry
From a historical-literary perspective, the affinity between modernists and noventayochistas comes from the principles of the new aesthetic and the opening of a splendid moment in Spanish poetry. The modernist period began a “Silver Age” leading up to the poetic language of the Generation of ’27. This achievement depends on the combination of certain cultural and formal characteristics.
Cultural Formant
Modernism manifested a desire for a spiritual struggle for beauty. This sensitivity precludes the vulgar and bourgeois poetry of the Restoration, favoring an attitude of delicacy and finesse. That first combative attitude stems from a sense of marginalization that affects aspects such as decadence, dandyism, and the provocation of the poet, whether considered aristocratic or misunderstood.
Formal Characters
The modernist sought full freedom of expression. This would tend toward metric lawlessness, although we know that any breach of rules finally becomes a new code of rules. The renewal of the modernist poetic tone depends on freer verse and metrics based on adopting blank verse and poetic prose. It also experimented with classic verses (sonnet, silva) and traditional meters, the line initiated by the Romantics and under the patronage of the French metric, which suggests the use of unusual meters, even 20 syllables. Also, the modernists grant great importance to the rhythmic sound of the verse, which will be very marked. Modernist poetry’s musicality results from the evolution of post-Romanticism (Bécquer, Zorrilla, Campoamor), from the colors of the Impressionists, the refined adjectives, synesthesia, and visual and evocative images. The quest for originality is manifested in lexical innovation, especially through neologisms, archaisms, and barbarisms.
Modernist Promotions
Modernist poets can be grouped into three classes:
- Initial Modernism: This first class comprises Manuel Reina, Ricardo Gil, and Salvador Rueda, who influenced other authors like Juan Ramón Jiménez and Rubén Darío. The arrival of Darío in Spain (1892), after his success with “Azul…” (1888), decisively strengthened the new influx of poetry. These authors take the metric and rhythmic innovations of Bécquer and Rosalía and equip their colorful and sensual poems. In such a refined musical direction, Rueda described the purpose of poetic sensibility in his theoretical book “Rhythm” (1894). The initial friendship between Rubén and Salvador Rueda turned into a confrontation with the leadership of the modernists, as Rueda considered himself the only master of the Spanish modernists.
- Triumphant Modernism (1899-1905): In 1899, Rubén Darío came to Spain a second time, starting the remarkable influence of Latin American poetry over the Spanish in the first third of the twentieth century. Rubén became a friend and mentor to young poets of the moment: Francisco Villaespesa, Gregorio Martínez Sierra, Manuel and Antonio Machado, Eduardo Marquina, Emilio Carrere, and Juan Ramón Jiménez, who arrived in Madrid sponsored by Darío and Villaespesa. Jiménez co-founded “Helios” (1903-1904), the most representative journal of Spanish Modernism, edited with typographic care that would be key in Juan Ramón’s subsequent poetic task. The contributions to this journal and the publication of “Songs of Life and Hope” (1905) by Rubén Darío mark the closing of the final stage of Spanish modernist poetry.
- Postmodern Poetry: The third period of modernism includes a chronology that goes from 1905 to 1917, when the October Revolution occurred, and the First World War was about to end. In the poetry scene, modernism and a full swing avant-garde coexist. There is also the crucial fact of the publication of “Diary of a Newlywed Poet” by Juan Ramón Jiménez, which opened contemporary Spanish poetry. If Juan Ramón Jiménez is the first contemporary poet of Spain, Unamuno and Antonio Machado are the last modern poets. However, all three proceeded between early modern learning, to which Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez contributed, from different budgets, as discussed in the exposition on each of them.
ANTONIO MACHADO
Personality Traits
According to his contemporaries, Machado was a thoughtful, quiet, deep, clear man, expressive of a very personal capacity, connecting with the delicate as well as the rough and hard. There’s a poem dedicated to Rubén Darío that seems like a posthumous tribute from Machado, but it is not: Rubén Darío died before Machado. Machado himself, in his self-portrait, has these lines: He considers himself an unkempt, sloppy man, with violent internal impulses at times, but dominated by the serenity of a gentle nature, reflective of a deep religiousness, philanthropist, and stoically prepared to take the “last trip” because nothing holds him back. In this poem is the essential content of his character, but just reading his poetry, and above all, his prose works “Juan de Mairena” and “Complementary”, one can know how deeply substantive a man Antonio Machado was. This is what we will be completing with the poems that we are commenting on. There is an important aspect that should not be overlooked: the more general idea is that of a serene, kind, and peaceful Machado, and so it is, as stated above, but he speaks of “drops of Jacobin blood”, revolutionary, rebellious, and he was, too. He was hard and inflexible when ethics and socio-political views came into play. Here is a sample of this harshness in a few notes about the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera and its consequences: “Spain falls on all fours. Will you wake up? You will probably find a comfortable position and stay there for a long time.” (October 2, 1923). “The homunculus from the Spanish politiquilla complain that Unamuno, they argued, his campaign staff is against the King. Indeed, Unamuno is a person, and so egregious, that it is saved Spain’s contempt for Europe.” (July 21, 1924. The Complementary). We see in these words the critical and hard feature of ’98. “The Jacobin blood” stuck, actually, in his prose work and in some poems; the civil war inspired him with some truly dynamite verses.
“Loneliness” and “Campos de Castilla” are two complementary books because they mark an evolution, and evolution is a process, not a breakup. These characters are not at all striking but more or less pronounced and nuanced trends in Antonio Machado. Let’s conclude by saying that, despite some mediocre and other uneven poems, he has an important set of such quality that makes him worthy of a preferred place in twentieth-century poetry because he is one of our greatest poets.
JUAN RAMÓN JIMÉNEZ AND HIS POETIC WORK
Life and Study of His Work: “Diary of a Newlywed Poet”
Juan Ramón published this book in 1917 and reissued it in 1948 with textual changes and a new title: “Diary of a Poet and Sea.” In the edition he prepared before his death, he recovered the early title, even writing a newlywed in italics.
Themes and Motifs
The poet’s intention to record and analyze the circumstances of his trip to the United States, where he married, is the genesis of a book that, in effect, is set up as a diary, more like a chronicle than a real journey of one’s interior. Hence, subjectivity is most relevant in this, as in other diaries. There are three main thematic clusters: the sea, death, and love. In the sea, and related items like the sky and the wave, the poet sees the essence of the lyric: the oceanic sense of nudity, full immensity, and eternity to which he aspires. Besides, the sea suggests the form of free verse. The sea comes to identify with the poet’s conscience. Finally, missing the sea, the safety and quiet evokes the figure of his mother. The sense of the ephemeral nature of life arises from the dialectic between childhood nostalgia, evoking a lost paradise of full life, and maturity, a sign of temporal advancement and death. The poet feels surrounded by death and that the living are dead: “The biggest attraction for me, America, is the charm of its cemeteries, no fences, fencing, the true poetic city of every city.” These ideas are contrasted with the feeling of infinity, purity, beauty, and eternity, thematized in the reasons for spring and the bird—above all, the sky, flowers, or the twilight. The traditional motif of the pilgrim in a foreign land who had to “break the injustice” of his country joins the dictates of the present: American mothers selling European children who come from the belligerent countries in World War I or marginalized New Yorkers. Love, formalized in dialogue with a woman, is experienced as consolation and illusion, as well as misunderstandings and difficulties, as indeed ineffable. With these ups and downs, the poet finally finds a sense of the world and a cure for his nervous illness through love and the sea.
Structure and Metrics
Regarding the metric, free verse dominates, and prose poems also appear as it progresses. In general, prose expression specializes in less challenging content, descriptions of places, and the most ironic tones, while poetry corresponds to intimate sensations and cleansing and greater subjectivity.
Conclusion
Juan Ramón Jiménez was always renewing and correcting his work. Proof of this is to compare the poems of the 1st and 2nd to the 3rd anthology. He is corrected and selected. In the 2nd anthology’s prologue, we observe a prologue addressed to Manuel G. Morente, and we already define its essence. “The simple and spontaneous is the best of his work.” Simplicity: what has been achieved with fewer elements. Spontaneity: the created without effort. “The beauty achieved with fewer elements is only the result of plenty.”
he result of plenty.”