Modernism and the Poetic Evolution of Juan Ramón Jiménez

1. Modernism

Modernism is a literary movement and a current of thought.

1.1. Literary Modernism

Literary modernism emerged in Latin America, led by José Martí and Rubén Darío. The young modernists sought to assert their American roots while rebelling against Spanish influence. Their foundations lie in the Symbolist, Romantic, and Parnassian traditions of French literature, as well as Italian and English literature.

The modernist movement implies a rejection of everyday life. The writer typically chooses between two paths:

• External Modernism: Creating an imaginary world, placing the action in unreal spaces. Modernists are attracted by novelty, and this eagerness to escape leads them to reclaim their origins.
• Intimate Modernism: Looking inward; it is the poet's response to their own melancholy.

1.2. Characteristic Features of Modernism

• Romanticism: Incorporates discontent with life, melancholy, and fantasy.
• Parnassianism: The pursuit of formal perfection and the concept of art for art's sake. The poem must be beautiful, rather than a vehicle for moral ideas.
• Symbolism: Derived from musical effects; modernist beauty is achieved through vivid visual imagery.
• Metrics: Favorite meters include the Alexandrian and the dodecasyllabic.

2. Noucentista Poetry: Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez opened the way toward a new understanding of poetry and became the teacher of the Generation of '27. His poetic career is divided into three stages:

• Sensitive Stage: Heavily influenced by Bécquer, Symbolism, and Modernism. It features landscape descriptions reflecting the soul of the poet. It is emotive and sentimental poetry. Arias tristes focuses on the landscape, while Jardines lejanos (The Sound of Isolation) focuses on beauty, solitude, and women.
• Intellectual Stage: Triggered by his first trip to America, which led to the discovery of the sea as a symbol of life. He begins a spiritual development, striving for eternity through beauty. Diario de un poeta recién casado is a work purged of modernist guises; Piedra y cielo searches for poetic sublimation; and La estación total highlights the figure of the god-creator.
• Última (True) Stage: Comprising works written in exile. He continues to refine his style in search of beauty and perfection. Animal de fondo depicts the poet seeking a god that is not an external deity, but one residing within him and his work. Dios deseado y deseante shows the poet identifying with the god he has long sought.