Spanish Poetry: From Civil War to Modern Avant-Garde

Spanish Poetry Since 1940

The consequences of the civil war included a break with past trends, the exile of many poets (literature speaks of two groups: inner and exile), censorship preventing poets from expressing themselves freely, and isolation from European literary and artistic movements.

Poetry of Exile

Different cases:

• Antonio Machado died a few days before leaving Spain.
• Poets of the Generation of '14, like Juan Ramón Jiménez.
• Poets from the Generation of '27: some died, like Lorca, others went into exile.

Common topics include the theme of the lost homeland. Their poems evoke struggle, illusions, and a tone of desperation and bitter nostalgia. Spanish evocation of distant lands and the craving to return. The styles are varied (Juan Gil Albert, Juan Rejano).

Postwar Poetry

Formed in the 1940s and early 1950s. The 'split generation' (Generación escindida). Dámaso Alonso reduced the options to two paths for those who remained in Spain:

• Strong Poetry: Cultivated by authors of the Generation of '36, complacent with the dictatorship. They were grouped around the journal Garcilaso. Their world vision was coherent and calm, often using the sonnet. Subjects included religious feeling, love of scenery, the exaltation of Spain's imperial past, and the victors of the civil war.
• Uprooted Poetry: The most important work is Children of Wrath (Dámaso Alonso, 1944). Cattail is the magazine that welcomed poets with this trend. Poetry was desperate and anguished, with an existentialist tone. They felt the world was wrong because its creator was rebuked. The style was rough and full of violent, direct language. Plain language was used (Angela Figuera, José Luis Hidalgo).

Social Poetry

The consolidation of socialist realism in 1955. Two books marked a turning point: I Ask for Peace and the Word by Blas de Otero and Songs of the Iberians by Gabriel Celaya. In these books, both poets surpassed the existential angst stage, focusing on human problems. They used poetry as a means to publicize the political situation. It addressed issues such as social injustice in Spain, the desire for liberty, and solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed. The poets aimed to reach the people, using clear, colloquial, and direct language.

Poetry of Experience

These poets represent the overcoming of social poetry and emerged in the late 1950s (Ángel González, José Ángel Valente). They showed an ideological nonconformity with the situation in Spain, but did not dogmatically claim a single form of poetry, supporting multiple forms, not only the purely communicative and social. Their subjects included a return to the intimate, nostalgic evocation of childhood, family, love, and friendship. They rejected previous styles, using a conversational style with concentrated, anti-rhetorical speech.

The Seventies: The Newest

In 1970, José María Castellet published Novísimos Spanish, which broke with realist poetry. Among them were Félix de Azúa and Vázquez Montalbán. They represented a new avant-garde. Its features included:

• Presence in mass media communication.
• Focusing again on issues of other times and other cultures.
• Use of experimental procedures, removing punctuation, using collage, and original graphic layouts.