Adverbial Clauses and Avant-Garde Literary Movements

Adverbial Clauses of Time, Place, and Manner

Adverbial clauses function as adverbial complements within a complex sentence.

• Time: Equivalent to an adverb of time. NEXUS: when.
• Manner: Equivalent to an adverb of manner. NEXUS: as.
• Place: Equivalent to an adverb of place. NEXUS: where.

Causal and Final Adverbial Clauses

• Causal: Indicate the reason why the action expressed by the main verb is performed. NEXUS: because.
• Final: Indicate the purpose pursued by the action expressed by the main verb. NEXUS: for / to.

General Characteristics of the Avant-Garde

The term avant-garde refers to a set of artistic and literary movements developed in Europe and America during the first third of the 20th century. It represents a break not only with prior art and literature but with the entire Western aesthetic tradition.

Key Features

• Anti-realism: Disagreement with reality leads authors to break with the idea of art as an imitation of the outside world.
• Primitivism: Disagreement with Western historical evolution produces a myth of the primitive man.
• Irrationalism: Rejection of reason and science as pillars of progress; advocacy for art based on chance and the unconscious.
• Originality: Authors seek to establish a cutting-edge new art for a new time.

The European Avant-Garde

The main movements in European literature include Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism.

• Futurism: Exalts speed, technique, sport, and strength. Texts are characterized by onomatopoeia, nonverbal cues, and typographical innovations.
• Dadaism: The name mimics a baby's babbling, arising to return to a state of original innocence, linked to primitivism.
• Surrealism: Advocates for the liberation of man from the tyranny of reason and morality through art born directly from the unconscious.

Vanguards in Spain

The initiator of the avant-garde in Spain was Ramón Gómez de la Serna, creator of the greguerías.

Features of Spanish Vanguardism

• Use of unique imagery and stylistic resources like personifications and puns.
• Emphasis on a sense of humor.

Ultraism

Ultraism is a specific movement in Castilian poetry. Ultraist poems avoid the direct expression of feelings and maintain a jovial tone.

Ultraist Characteristics

• Influence of Futurism.
• Importance of the visual disposition of words.
• Use of original metaphors.
• Suppression of punctuation marks.