Spanish and Latin American Literature: Key Authors, Movements and Narrative Eras

Hispanic Literature: Authors, Movements and Narrative Eras

American Literature: Fiction: Tales by excellent storytellers. The narrators explore the implications of indigenous cultures, their form and their own perspective, shaping how the narrators understand the world. In Hispanic literature, its symbolism, language and magic are not inferior to short stories comparable to European culture.

Borges is the master of the short story ("The Aleph", "The Congress of the World").

Three Chronological Periods

1st period: The tendency was predominantly toward the realistic novel up to the 1940s. From the 1940s to the 1960s came a period of renewal, and after the 1960s the Hispanic narrative consolidated the personality it still proposes today.

Nature, with its own great magnitude, was approached in an almost pantheistic way. Problems of world politics and social themes were central.

This treatment could be combined with many themes and with very varied techniques.

Authors of the 1st Period: The Realist Novel

• Rómulo Gallegos (Doña Bárbara)
• Ricardo Güiraldes (Don Segundo Sombra)
• Ciro Alegría (El mundo es ancho y ajeno)

2nd Period: Renewal

The realist novel increasingly incorporated new techniques and themes, and urban problems began to include magical elements.

Authors of the 2nd Period

• Miguel Ángel Asturias, Nobel Prize 1967 (El señor presidente, Hombres de maíz)
• Alejo Carpentier (Los pasos perdidos, El siglo de las luces)

3rd Period: Consolidation of Magical Realism

Magical realism consolidated, with new narrative structures.

Authors of the 3rd Period

• Gabriel García Márquez (Cien años de soledad, El otoño del patriarca, Cuentos)
• Mario Vargas Llosa (La ciudad y los perros, La casa verde)
• Julio Cortázar (Bestiario, Rayuela, collected in his short story collections; award-winning work)
• Juan Rulfo, born 1910, began his career with El llano en llamas in 1953 and published Pedro Páramo in 1955.

The Generation of 98

Narrative 98: Pío Baroja, Unamuno, Azorín, Valle-Inclán.

Essay 98: Unamuno (passionate), Azorín (brevity), Ramiro de Maeztu (Don Quijote).

Poetry 98: Antonio Machado, Manuel Machado, Valle-Inclán (key lyrics, trilogy), Miguel Hernández (classic lyrics, Rayo que no cesa), León Felipe, Antonio Machado (Sevilla, metrics).

Theater

Theater of experiences and commercial theater:

• Generation of 98 (Azorín, Unamuno, Valle-Inclán)
• Generation of 27 (Alberti, Miguel Hernández)
• Modernist theater, costumbrist theater (Arniches, Hermanos Álvarez Quintero), humor theater (Muñoz Seca), with an expansion by Valle-Inclán.

Lorca and the Theater

Federico García Lorca (Generation of 27) combined dramatic intensity with the essence of the Spanish tradition in works such as Bodas de sangre, María Pineda and La zapatera prodigiosa.

Novecentismo

After the First World War, in Paris, literary gatherings took place. Ramón Gómez de la Serna represented Spanish futurism, ultraism and creationism, leading toward surrealism. Juan Ramón Jiménez inherited the poetry of Rosalía de Castro and Bécquer and focused on the full pursuit of beauty and the world.

Generation of 27

This generation shared the same literary concept and developed in three stages: before the Civil War (1936), during the war, and from the end of the Second World War onward. Its authors were numerous.

After 1936: Theater

From the 1940s to the 1950s, authors such as Alberti (Fain), Max Aub, Alejandro Casona and Miguel Mihura developed theater of humor and drama. Existential concerns drove Buero Vallejo (En la ardiente oscuridad) and Alfonso Sastre (Escuadra hacia la muerte).

The 1950s and 1960s

Alfonso Sastre and Buero Vallejo continued, joined by new playwrights such as Lauro Olmo, Martín Recuerda and Carlos Muñiz.

From the 1960s Onward

Literature moved beyond realism, opening new trends.