Key Spanish Poets of the 20th Century: Salinas, Guillén, Lorca & More

Key Spanish Poets (1891-1963)

Pedro Salinas (1891-1951)

• 1923 - Omens: Books influenced by Juan Ramon Jimenez and the avant-garde.
• 1929 - Seguro azar: Poems dedicated to the typewriter or the movies.
• 1933 - The Voice Due: Item you love, that is not suffering or frustration, but a source of joy and mysterious force that gives meaning to life and the world.
• 1936 - Name of Love
• 1946 - The Poetry Referred: Tinged drama and anguish over the events.
• 1949 - A Vivid Clearer: (war, etc.).

Jorge Guillén (1893-1984)

Considered the prototype of the pure poet and intellectual. His poetry is the result of a rigorous selection process: look for the idea or feeling, eliminating the anecdotal or accessory.

• Song: Collected in successive editions (from 1928-1950). Topic: feeling of joy for the simple fact of being and being alive, the song of perfection and wonder of the world.
• Clamor (1957-1963): The negative forces that darken the world: death, evil, injustice, lawlessness, war ...

Gerardo Diego (1896-1987)

Influenced by the avant-garde. The themes of his poetry are love, the evocation of landscapes, bulls, religious themes, music ...

• The Ballad of the Bride (1918)
• Image (1922)
• Soria (1923)
• Manual Foam (1924)

Vicente Aleixandre (1898-1984)

The poet believes that poetry is communication. The central theme of his work is the emotional impulse of solidarity toward nature and man. Nobel Prize in 1977.

Strongly influenced by surrealism, his style is characteristic of the use of visionary images and symbols that are difficult to explain:

• Swords Like Lips (1932)
• The Destruction or Love (1935)
• Shadow of the Paradise (1944)

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936, Fuentevaqueros, killed in Granada)

• Songs (1927): Shows the influence of Andalusian popular folklore and folk songs for children, which do not hide the issues of frustration and tragic destiny, as in the famous Song of the Rider. The popular metaphor is combined with educated and avant-garde elements in Gypsy Ballads (1928).
• Poet in New York (1940): The most important book of Spanish surrealism. It expresses his protest against the life torn apart in New York, dehumanized and materialistic.
• Lament for the Death of Ignacio Sanchez Mejias (1935): Composed of elected verses following the death of the bullfighter.

Rafael Alberti (Puerto de Santa Maria 1902-1999)

At the end of the Civil War he went into exile, first in Argentina and then to Rome, until 1977, when he returned to Spain.

Styles and themes: the traditional and the avant-garde, popular and religious.

• 1924 - Sailor on Land: Topic: Cadiz sea nostalgia of his childhood, use short poems in the traditional manner.
• 1929 - The Angels: Technical surreal, strange uses angels to personalize their feelings of hopelessness, pain, sadness ...
• 1931-1936 - The Poet in the Street: Poetry of social issues in the service of the republican cause.
• 1945 - To Painting: Themes and works of famous painters.
• 1952 - Return of the Living Far Away: Nostalgic evocations of the past and the distant homeland.

Luis Cernuda (1902-1963)

The central theme of his poetry is the expression of his inner dissatisfaction towards life: the clash between her desire for personal fulfillment and the limits imposed by the world, the conflict between "reality and desire." Other themes include love, the evocation of childhood and adolescence, as well as certain social and political issues.

The Reality and the Desire include books like:

• Forbidden Pleasures (1931)
• Donde habite el olvido (1932-1933)
• Como quien espera el alba (1941-1944)
• Desolation of the Chimera (1956-1962)