Editorials and 20th Century Literary Movements

What is an Editorial?

An editorial is an argumentative text that explains and assesses a significant journalistic event.

Characteristics of an Editorial

• Authorship: The editorial is an unsigned text that aims to show a collective opinion.
• Theme: Must be current and relevant, often linked to politics, economics, etc.
• Function: To explain the fundamentals of its subject matter.
• Status: Appears in a prominent place in the opinion section of a medium.
• Adequacy: Must be suitable for the speaker's communicative intentions, the situation in which it develops, and the relationship between all parties involved.
• Coherence: Must be organized and arranged according to a major theme from which secondary ideas arise.
• Cohesion: Its components must be connected by linguistic resources to achieve their communicative intent.

Spanish Literature: Late 20th Century Trends

The 1970s Novel

The novel of the 1970s continued the search for new forms, and experimentalism was taken to the structural extreme. A novel characterized by storytelling with techniques that break down language and tend towards chaos appeared. A line featuring writers such as Eduardo Mendoza and Juan Marsé emerged.

The 1980s Trends

From the 1980s, fatigue with experimentation became evident, and literature blurred into different tendencies:

• Radical experimentalism (Julian Ríos)
• Intimacy tendency (Javier Marías)
• Cultivation of imagination (Álvaro Pombo)
• The detective novel (Antonio Muñoz Molina)

The 1990s Narrators

From the 1990s came a group of narrators with their own distinct voice from previous generations. Their characteristics:

• Concern about the loss of the values of Western culture.
• A critical look at the inevitable changes that constant modernity involves.
• Incorporation of irony and cultural codes.

Literary Trends at the End of the 20th Century

• World urban trend
• Intimacy and introspection
• American culture influence
• Return to the theme of the Civil War

Notable Authors (Late 20th Century Spanish Literature)

• Juan José Millás
• Almudena Grandes
• Luis Mateo Díez
• José María Merino
• Belén Gopegui

Hispanic American Literature: 20th Century

20th Century Hispanic American Poetry

• Modernism (Rubén Darío)
• Postmodernism (Pablo Neruda)
• Avant-garde (César Vallejo)
• Pure poetry (José Gorostiza)
• Black poetry (Nicolás Guillén)

Renewal of the Novel: Magic Realism

• Miguel Ángel Asturias
• Alejo Carpentier

Major Hispanic American Narrators

• Mario Vargas Llosa
• Gabriel García Márquez
• Julio Cortázar
• Ernesto Sábato
• Juan Rulfo