Spanish Literature: Miguel de Unamuno, Antonio Machado and Juan Ramón Jiménez

Spanish Literature in the Early Twentieth Century

Antonio Machado

Biography: Born in Sevilla in 1875, where he spent his childhood in the Dueñas Palace with his brother Manuel. He wrote very important works. When he went to Paris he met Rubén Darío, who offered him a job. In 1907 he became a professor of French in Soria, where he met the young Leonor, whom he loved deeply. Leonor died of tuberculosis in 1912. Due to the great pain this caused, he moved to the city of Baeza, Jaén, where he worked and wrote articles during the Civil War. He died in 1939 in France, where he had taken refuge and worked as a border guard in his last days. Together with his mother, he wrote works about the sea, and children.

Miguel de Unamuno

Innovative novelist of the Generation of '98, who used the expression nivola for his novels, a genre that explores identity, death and faith. Unamuno defined the nivola as a philosophical argument and a novel of ideas. His works deal with numerous reflections and theories, and descriptive characters, in a drama where he enters the characters' lives.

His most important novels are Niebla (Mist), Mártir and San Manuel Bueno, mártir.

Biography: Born in Bilbao in 1864, where he was rector and Greek professor at the University of Salamanca. He was a socialist, critical of Alfonso XIII and the dictatorship of Primo de Rivera, which led to his exile in France. During the Second Republic he was elected as a deputy, supporting ideals that were popular at the time. Thanks to his public acts he was removed from the University of Salamanca and confronted the Francoist regime. He died in Salamanca in 1936.

Novecentismo

The Novecentismo was a literary movement built by writers with intellectual formation. The current sought pure art and a humanized content, far from the emotional. This literary current cultivated a prose that exposed the aspirations of Spanish modernization. The most important authors of this tendency were Juan Ramón Jiménez and Eugenio d'Ors.

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez was a Nobel Prize in Literature winner in 1956, whose poetic career is divided into three stages:

• Sensitive era (1900–1916): Literary current of Symbolism and Modernismo. Works include Jardines lejanos and Baladas de primavera. He also wrote Platero y yo, published in 1914.
• Intellectual era (1917–1936): Characterized by purity and the elimination of all sentimental and artificial elements. (Diario de un poeta recién casado)
• Hermetic era (1936–1958): Hermetic, conceptual style, reaching maximum purity.

Literary Avant-Gardes

The literary avant-gardes were a set of artistic and literary movements. The first ones, such as Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism, characterized poetry by experimentation, irrationalism and a formal rupture with all rules. They sought to mix art, literature, music and painting. The most important were Futurism, Cubism, Dadaism and Surrealism, with great productive impact, especially in painting.

The writer Juan Ramón Jiménez, famous for his compositions and arrangements, shows in his work a metaphorical and humanist character.