Spanish Poetry from the 1940s Onward: Key Trends

The Decade of the 1940s

Like the novel and drama, many poets were published in exile, while others, of a more traditional nature, published in Spain. They try existentialist themes, presenting a negative view of life and posing many questions.

Key Figures:

• Vicente Aleixandre emphasized this with the poetry collection Shadow of Paradise.
• Dámaso Alonso with Children of Wrath.

The Decade of the 1950s

As with other literary genres, the poetry of this decade is conceived as a tool capable of transforming reality. This poetry has a narrative character and tends toward prosaism.

Main Representatives:

• Blas de Otero, author of I Ask for Peace and Resignation Speech, where he addresses the lack of freedom in Spain.
• Gabriel Celaya, with his collection of poems, Iberian Songs, where a very quantitative (fighter) poem is presented in a simple style and colloquial lexicon.
• José Hierro, Fifth of '42, where he presented some social causes of human problems.

The Decade of the 1960s

The so-called "poetic promotion of '60" appears, in which poets evolve from the social realism of the previous decade to branch out into poetry as experience and poetry as knowledge.

• Jaime Gil de Biedma is the chief representative of poetry as experience. He mixes both conversational language and expression in works such as Traveling Companions and Posthumous Poems.
• Ángel González is a clear example of the transition between social poetry and the new poetic style, with works like Rough World, Urban Treaty, and poems with narrative procedures.
• José Ángel Valente is the main advocate of poetry as knowledge. His verses are dense, and he uses a sober language. Works: A Modo de Esperanza, 37 Fragments, where he gets to talk about the poetry of silence.

Latest Trends

At the end of the 1960s, a group called the "Novísimos" emerged, whose poems are collected in the anthology titled Novísimos (1970). They show their taste for the decadent and new topics such as comics, movies, music, and politics.

Examples include Pere Gimferrer and Juan Luis Panero.

After the "Novísimos", there is no single dominant poetic group. Poets of previous decades continued to publish, and generally speaking, there are many poets in our days with very different styles (e.g., Antonio Gala, Antonio Gamoneda).