Spanish & Latin American Literature: 20th Century Movements

Generation of '27: A Blend of Avant-Garde and Tradition

The Generation of '27 was a group of Spanish authors who mixed avant-garde elements with features of traditional Spanish poetry.

Characteristics:

• Formal renewal, using rich vocabulary
• Metric renovation, without metric freedom
• Varied subject matter

Key Authors:

• Pedro Salinas: His writing is a way of union with the absolute. The formal simplicity contrasts with the complexity of its meaning.
• Gerardo Diego: His poetry mixes tradition and renewal, avant-garde and traditional forms.
• Federico Garcia Lorca: His poetry blends the popular with the cult, inspiration with meticulous work. His work shows the frustration of man who cannot get what he wants. Notable works include "Poet in New York". He also founded a theater company, "La Barraca", that produced works such as "Yerma" and "The House of Bernarda Alba".
• Rafael Alberti: Known for "Sailor on Land".
• Luis Cernuda: His work unites loneliness and the anxiety of love. Notable works include "Where Oblivion Dwells" and "Reality and Desire".

Spanish Poetry in the 1940s

Poetic groups clustered around various journals:

• Garcilaso: Traditional poetry in its form and themes (Luis Rosales, Leopoldo Panero)
• Espadaña: Transcendent poetry focused on the pain and anguish, as seen in "Children of Wrath" by Damaso Alonso (Blas de Otero, Gabriel Celaya).

Tremendismo

Representatives:

• Camilo Jose Cela: Galician writer who inaugurated this novelistic style with "The Family of Pascual Duarte". He later published "The Hive", a history of the people of Madrid from postwar poverty. His work often features a negative view of the world. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1989.
• Carmen Laforet: From Barcelona, she won the first Nadal Prize in 1944 with the novel "Nada", which shows the arrival of Andrea in Barcelona and her process of personal maturation.
• Miguel Delibes: From Valladolid, he is part of the "Tremendismo" movement with his work "The Cypress is Long Enough". It describes experiences from a traditional and pessimistic narrative scheme.

1950s: Social Realism

Social realism starts with characteristics such as an open structure, collective ownership, and a focus on Spanish reality. A key work from this period is "El Jarama" by Rafael Sanchez Ferlosio.

1960s: The Experimental Novel

Features of the experimental novel include breaking the linear narrative (flashback), alternation, use of interior monologue, and the protagonist embodying the struggle of the individual against society. Notable works include "Time of Silence" by Luis Martin-Santos, "Five Hours with Mario" by Miguel Delibes, and "San Camilo" by Camilo Jose Cela.

1970s: Extreme Experimentalism

The search for new forms continues, and extreme experimentalism appears in the structural novel, such as "La Saga/Fuga de J.B." by Gonzalo Torrente Ballester.

1980s: A Return to Imagination

There is a weariness of experimentation and a return to the cultivation of the imagination. Notable authors include Alvaro Pombo and Julio Llamazares ("The Yellow Rain"). The "whodunit" genre emerges with works like "Winter in Lisbon" and "Beltenebros" by Antonio Muñoz Molina.

1990s: New Voices

The emergence of a group of storytellers with their own voices, characterized by a critical eye, a skeptical attitude, and the constant use of irony.

American Literature of the 20th Century

Poetry

Trends:

• Modernism: Led by Ruben Dario, a constant search for beauty.
• Avant-Garde: Beginning in 1920 with Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poet whose career reflects the trends of Latin American poetry of the 20th century. Notable work: "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair".

Prose in the First Half of the 20th Century

Prose moves from the cultivation of a realistic novel to a profound renewal of the novel. There is a lack of interest in realistic literature, and there is a concern for finding new ways to tell stories.

Two major phenomena mark the novel:

• Magical Realism: Refers to a way of conceiving the world in which human reality is influenced by mixing poetic and mythical reality. Representatives include Miguel Angel Asturias and Alejo Carpentier.
• Boom of Latin American Literature: Considered to have started with Mario Vargas Llosa's novel "The City and the Dogs". Characteristics include the evolution of magical realism, the rupture of the argument, the use of new narrative techniques, and the innovation of language.

Representatives of the Boom:

• Julio Cortazar
• Mario Benedetti
• Mario Vargas Llosa: From Peru, his work shows complication and difficulty in technique. Notable works include "The City and the Dogs" and "Death in the Andes".
• Gabriel Garcia Marquez: From Colombia, the publication of his novel "One Hundred Years of Solitude" tells the story of the Buendia family. Other notable works include "Love in the Time of Cholera" and "Chronicle of a Death Foretold".