20th Century Spanish Literature: An Overview
20th Century Spanish Literature
Poetry
Miguel Hernandez
His work combines the popular with the cult. The most characteristic of his poetry is metaphorical richness and passionate tone. His career is a clear example of the evolution of poetry: from the dehumanization of the early moments to commitment. He is considered a poet of transition, an epigone of the Generation of ’27 for some authors and belonging to the Generation of ’36 for others.
Works: Expert in Moons, Lightning That Does Not Stop, Songbook
Read MoreNarrative Trends in Spanish Literature: From Postwar to the Present
1. Postwar Period (1940s-1970s)
1.1. The 1940s
The postwar novel emerged in 1942 with Camilo José Cela’s The Family of Pascual Duarte. This period was characterized by a sense of alarmism, reflected in the appearance of characters such as criminals, individuals with intellectual disabilities, and prostitutes in literature. Other successful novels of this time include Mariona Rebull by Ignacio Agusti and Nada by Carmen Laforet.
1.2. The 1950s
The 1950s saw the rise of social realism, characterized by:
Read MoreRealism and Regionalism in Latin American Novels: A Historical Overview
Novelistic Developments Pre-20th Century: Realism and Regionalism
The novelistic genre emerged relatively late in Latin America. El Periquillo Sarmiento by José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi, published in Mexico in 1816, is considered the first Latin American novel. Romantic novels like María by Colombian author Jorge Isaacs and Amalia by Argentine author José Mármol followed, marking the beginning of Hispanic nature taking center stage in literature. Modernist approaches led to two novelistic
Read MoreIntroduction to Literary Genres and Forms
Prose and Verse
Prose is the form of expression most literary works resemble. It mirrors everyday speech in its structure and flow. Verse, on the other hand, is characterized by its musicality. This musicality is achieved through:
- Accents
- Rhyme
- Syllable count
Figures of Repetition
- Alliteration: Repetition of one or more phonemes in a verse to imitate a sound.
- Anaphora: Repetition of a word at the beginning of a verse or phrase.
- Parallelism: Repetition of similar syntactic structures.
- Pleonasm: Use of unnecessary
Post-War Spanish Literature: A Comprehensive Overview
Post-War Spanish Literature
Jaime Gil de Biedma
(February 2, 1929 – January 8, 1990)
A poet of the School of Barcelona, Jaime Gil de Biedma is a clear representative of the poetic renewal that occurred in early 1960s poetry. His work focuses on the exploration of personal experiences to develop, from the anecdotal, moral, or intimate reflection, and offers a disenchanted picture of the bourgeois world to which he belonged. Biedma achieves this through a cordial tone that oscillates between irony and
Read MoreA Guide to Literary Genres and Forms
Prose and Verse
Prose is the form of expression most literary works use. It resembles everyday speech in its distribution. Verse is characterized by its musicality. This musicality is achieved by:
- Accents
- Rhyme
- Syllable count
Figures of Repetition
- Alliteration: Repetition of one or more phonemes in a verse to imitate a sound.
- Anaphora: Repetition of a word at the beginning of a verse or phrase.
- Parallelism: Repetition of similar syntactic structures.
- Pleonasm: Use of unnecessary words in the verse for emphasis