Modern Spanish Poetry: Key Poets and Vanguard Movements

Modern Spanish Poetry: Key Poets

Considered a pioneer of modernism, Rubén Darío was responsible for its dissemination in Spain, alongside poets such as Salvador Rueda, Antonio Machado, Juan Ramón Jiménez, Eduardo Marquina, and Manuel Machado. Their poetry acquired an intimate tone.

Rubén Darío

Rubén Darío was the creator and promoter of Modernism. His first book, Azul (Blue), was a mixture of verse and prose. With Prosas Profanas (Profane Prose), he established the model for modernist poetry, intimidating his supporters. These books also addressed universal human problems: political poems, existential anxieties, and irony.

Antonio Machado

Antonio Machado's poetry is characterized by its depth in topics such as intimacy, memories, the Castilian landscape, and death.

• He preferred the use of popular forms in metrics.
• His style is characterized by the absence of rhetorical complexity.

His beginnings displayed an author close to the Modernist era (Soledades). The charm of the city is reflected in the quiet environment of desert parks and gardens. Intimacy, melancholy, and symbolism predominantly feature.

His best-known work is Campos de Castilla. His poetry became more austere and realistic. Furthermore, reflection on the evils of Spain is the subject of much poetry, aligning with the concerns of the Generation of '98.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

The poetic career of Juan Ramón Jiménez is marked by total dedication to poetry and the pursuit of beauty. His poetry evolved towards the creation of a very personal work.

• The first stage, the sensitive stage, includes modernist books such as Rhymes and Platero y Yo.
• The intellectual stage: Recently married, Jiménez opened the path to pure poetry.
• The third stage, or sufficient stage, developed in exile. With Total Station, he intended an abstract poetry.

Vanguard Poetry, the Isms, and Spain

After the First World War (1914-1918), a refreshing art emerged. The artistic movement known as vanguardia, or the isms, occurred in Europe between the two world wars.

These movements proposed a new and modern vision of art and literature. The vanguardistas wanted to break the habit of reading, locating their works within the limits of compression.

Major European Isms

The European isms emerged and disappeared quickly. However, some were consolidated. The main European vanguard movements were Cubism, Futurism, Dadaism, and Surrealism.

The Vanguard in Spain

The European renewable restlessness almost immediately became known in Spain through Ramón Gómez de la Serna. In his review, Prometheus, vanguardistas first appeared, although not explicitly manifesting the positive culture. The metaphors sometimes used in greguerías (short and witty sentences) and his conception of literature had considerable influence on the poetry of the isms and the Hispanic Generation of '27. Talk shows echoed the new artistic style. Literary magazines, such as Revista de Occidente, and Ortega y Gasset's essays gave credence to this refreshing stream.

Creationism and Ultraism

In 1918, the Chilean Vicente Huidobro, founder of Creationism, arrived in Spain. His theories were adapted by figures such as Gerardo Diego and Juan Larrea. The novelties that Creationism brought were:

• Art should not imitate reality or nature but should create.
• The poem is self-explanatory.
• The poem is beautiful in itself, not by comparison with another reality.
• Creationist poetry dispenses with punctuation and juxtaposes random images.

The average diffusion of Ultraism was through magazines such as Ultra or Greece. On leaving Guillermo de Torre, around 1923, the movement dissolved, but its lasting impression and innovative uses of image and metaphor were incorporated into the poetry of many representatives of the Generation of '27. The main characteristics were:

• Disappearance of the anecdote. The poem does not have a theme or transmit a message.
• The poetic instrument of metaphor is fundamental.
• The poems are composed of free verse, and their disposition often completes a given image.
• Technical advances of modern life appear as symbols of a new world.