Spanish Literary Movements: Novecentismo to Group of 27

Novecentismo

A Spanish literary movement whose authors embody the new intellectual who cares about form and pursues pure art, whose sole purpose is aesthetic enjoyment.

Vanguard Movements

Following the Modernist period, the Vanguard movements emerged:

• Futurism: Defends breaking with previous culture, exalting the modern, mechanical, and technical.
• Cubism: Vindicates the autonomy of the artwork; the writer aims to capture the simultaneity of reality.
• Dadaism: Aims to show the absurdity of life.
• Surrealism: Advocates for a total revolution of the human being, seeking transformation through imagination and poetry. It seeks a higher reality beyond aesthetic reason and morality. Its predecessor was the Frenchman André Breton. The pursuit of the irrational in the human being was explored in literature through "automatic writing," based on writing without a prior plan, allowing whatever comes to mind.

Ramón Gómez de la Serna

Takes traits from individual trends and views the world as an absurdity that can only be described in terms of jokes. He is the creator of the greguerías, which he defined as a mathematical operation:

Greguería = metaphor + humor

Group of 27

Joined for the first time in the tercentenary of the death of Góngora, at the Ateneo de Sevilla.

It is composed of authors who mixed avant-garde elements with features of traditional Spanish poetry.

Features

• Formal Renewal: Incorporation of new lexicon, slang, or terms previously excluded from poetry.
• Metric Renewal: In their poems, there is freedom of measure, use of traditional forms (like the sonnet), and the use of free verse.
• Theme: Very varied: love, death, fate, etc.

Stages

• Vanguard: Influenced by the European avant-garde.
• Commitment: Address feelings and existential and social concerns.
• Break: After the Civil War, the group split:
  • Exile: Theme of paradise lost, memories, and nostalgia for Spain.
  • Spain: Poetry of social and political commitment.

Authors (Poetry)

• Federico García Lorca (Poet of Frustration): In his poetry, he mixes the occult and popular. His work shows the frustration of the man who cannot get what he wants. Works: Poet in New York and Gypsy Ballads.
• Miguel Hernández: He is often considered a follower of the poetic Group of 27. Work: El rayo que no cesa.