Spanish Poetry Evolution from 1939 to the 1980s

Spanish Poetry from 1939: The Post-War Era

The 1940s: Exile and Internal Conflict

Exile Poetry: The poet serves as the voice of the people, characterized by the experience of exile and the fratricidal war. The tone is often naked, traditional, and uses simple language expression.

Poesía Arraigada (1939–1943)

This movement represents a turn back to poetry by an escapist post-war generation (Generation of '36). Representative poets undertook a rehumanization process. Key figures include:

• José García Nieto
• Vicente Gaos
• Luis Rosales (La casa encendida)
• Dionisio Ridruejo
• Luis Felipe Vivanco
• Leopoldo Panero (La estancia vacía)

Magazines were the primary vehicle for this movement. The style was metapoetic as an expression of self, featuring intimate poetry with religious themes, patriotic love, and classical metrics like the romance, sonnet, and décima.

Poesía Desarraigada (1943–1950)

In 1943, Rafael Morales began a major poetic moral project (Poemas del toro), alongside José Luis Hidalgo (Raíz). This movement opposes "rooted" poetry, expressing a painful awareness of a destroyed Spain and a waking consciousness toward God. It breaks traditional formal logic through syntactic novelty and coded imagery.

Postismo

Surging in 1945 with Carlos Edmundo de Ory and Eduardo Chicharro, this movement recovered surrealist avant-garde poetry within uprooted lives.

Social Poetry of the 1950s

Uprooted poetry evolved into social poetry, where the poet expresses solidarity with all people. Key milestones include Cantos íberos (1955) by Gabriel Celaya and Pido la paz y la palabra by Blas de Otero. Poetry became a useful tool to transform society and a political weapon.

Blas de Otero's Major Works

• Cántico espiritual (1942)
• Ángel fieramente humano (1950)
• Pido la paz y la palabra (1955)
• En castellano (1959)
• Con la inmensa mayoría (1960)
• Mientras (1970)

Themes: An objective critique of Spain, a love-hate relationship with the country, and the social-political situation. There is a shift from the "I" to the "We," using historical reference points, aesthetic expressiveness, idioms, and an everyday tone.

The 1960s: The Generation of 50

The Generation of '50 developed further in the 1960s, distancing itself from the thematic poverty and schematic style of social poetry. This second post-war generation includes Ángel González, José Ángel Valente, Carlos Sahagún, and the Barcelona School.

Poetry is viewed as communication of the "here and now." It features intimate personal poetry as self-analysis, life in the town, and a "bad class conscience." Metapoetry serves as a direct expression with thoughtful irony, distancing, and free rhythm structures.

1970s Experimentalism: The Novísimos

An experimental lyric vocation emerged from a minority of the Generation of '50 (the Novísimos). Key members include Pere Gimferrer, Guillermo Carnero, Antonio Martínez Sarrión, Vicente Molina Foix, and Ana María Moix.

They distanced themselves from social content in favor of metapoetry. Poetry was liberated from traditional moorings, utilizing historical figures, the cult of beauty, literature within literature, narrative elements, free verse, and irrationalism.

The 1980s: Poetry of Experience

Intimate poets expressed limited experiences with a tendency toward secrecy and Baroque culturalism. The Poetry of Experience showed an interest in traditional metric forms, influenced by teachers like Jaime Gil de Biedma and Valente. A "poetry of silence" appeared, rejecting verbal excess.

Mainstream figures of the Poetry of Experience include Luis García Montero, Álvaro Salvador, and Vicente Gallego. Characteristics include:

• Historical realism and poetic narrative dislocation.
• Realistic themes and urban environments.
• Colloquial language and free verse.
• Anti-avant-gardism.