Generation of '27: Spanish Literary Movement & Poets

The Generation of '27: A Spanish Literary Movement

The Generation of '27 was a constellation of writers who emerged in the Spanish cultural scene around 1927, which marks the tercentenary of the death of the baroque poet Luis de Góngora. Building on this date, Culteranismo poets asserted the author's honor, tarnished by 19th-century criticism. They celebrated Góngora at the Ateneo de Sevilla.

His aesthetic attempted to find common elements between classical and popular literary tradition and the aesthetic avant-garde, both Spanish and European. It evolved from pure poetry, the avant-garde dehumanized (Futurism, Cubism, Ultraism, Creationism), and the frigid metaphor of Góngora, to human engagement involving the disclosure of surrealism and even political commitment (as with Alberti), before dispersing, mostly into external and internal exile, after the Spanish Civil War of the 20th century.

As for metrics, reduced strophic flow and Modernist formulas were enriched and expressed primarily through expressive procedures such as visionary imagery, the cultivation of free verse, and so-called 'impure' verse and poetry, advocated by Pablo Neruda. It renewed and revitalized the thematic repertoire and finally released poetic language from the perceptive 19th-century straitjacket. Some of the most important poets of the Generation of '27 are: Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Dámaso Alonso.

Federico García Lorca: Poetic Duality

Lorca's poetic, as with his personality, expresses a dual role. On one side is overwhelming vitality, full of sympathy; on the other, unrest and frustration that beat in all his work. A second theme is tragic destiny. Many of Lorca's characters struggle against their fate.

Popular culture and erudition are united in his work. Music and traditional songs are constant presences in his poetry. He elaborates on the constants of the traditional spirit of their land and people: tearful love, courage, melancholia, passion...

Lorca's Lyrical Works:

• Book of Poems: Echo of the poet's discomfort. Nostalgically evokes her childhood from the perspective of a youth crisis. Ex: Ballad of the Little Square.
• First Songs and Songs: Tragic themes predominate in environments like the dawn, the night, the Andalusian city, or lunar landscapes.
• Poema del Cante Jondo: Presents formal and thematic unity and the expression of the prevailing sentiment due to its folk inspiration; describes the lyrical neopopulist of the Generation of '27.
• Gypsy Ballads: Death and the moral inconsistency of the Gypsy with bourgeois society are the two major issues.
• Poet in New York: Inspired by an experience in the U.S. It expresses the anguish and anxiety of communication that seized him, employing visionary surrealist language.
• Diván del Tamarit: Inspired by collections of ancient Arabic-Andalusian poetry.
• Lament for the Death of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías: An elegy of uncontrollable emotion and homage to the bullfighter.
• Six Galician Poems
• Sonnets of Dark Love: Ethical-loving content.