Spanish Poetry & Theater: Mid-20th Century to 1970s

Spanish Poetry in the Second Half of the 20th Century: Trends, Authors, and Representative Works

1950s: Social Poetry

Poets felt the need to provide critical testimony of reality and adopt an attitude of commitment to the situation in Spain. Key works include Cantos Íberos and Pido la paz y la palabra (I Ask for Peace and the Word) by Gabriel Celaya, and Que trata de España by Blas de Otero, published in 1955.

Key themes:

• The issue of Spain
• Social injustice
• Alienation
• Longing for freedom

The language is clear, sometimes mundane, and the tone is colloquial, but it uses many rhetorical resources.

1960s: Poetry of Knowledge

By the end of the 1950s, a group of poets emerged who sought further elaboration of poetic language and a shift from the collective to the personal. They defended the idea of the poem as an act of knowledge.

• Barcelona Group: Carlos Barral, José Agustín Goytisolo, Jaime Gil de Viedma.
• Madrid Group: Carlos Sahagún, Claudio Rodríguez, José Ángel Valente, Félix Grande.

Common themes:

• The passage of time, showing the transience of life.
• Love: Poems reflecting individual experiences.
• Friendship.
• The creation of poetry: Reflection on poetry.
• Reaction to the previous rhetoricity.

1970s: The Novísimos

In 1970, José María Castellet published an anthology titled Nueve novísimos poetas españoles (Nine Newest Spanish Poets). It featured the following authors, born between 1939 and 1948: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán, Antonio Martínez Sarrión, José María Álvarez, Félix de Azúa, Pere Gimferrer, Vicente Molina Foix, Guillermo Carnero, Ana María Moix, and Leopoldo María Panero.

Characteristics of this group:

• Combining popular culture with art, film, television, advertising.
• Broad cultural background, with a preference for European and Latin American literature.

Themes include the personal and the public (consumer society, the Vietnam War), and urban culture (myths of film, sports, etc.). The style focused on the renewal of poetic language.

20th Century Theater

Traditional Theater

This theater was successful, largely continuing from the late 19th century.

• Bourgeois Comedy: Jacinto Benavente composed works characterized by restraint in the composition of situations and characters, and by the thorough realism of the staging. La noche del sábado (Saturday Night), Rosas de otoño (Autumn Roses), La Malquerida (The Unloved), and Los intereses creados (Vested Interests) are some of his works.
• Poetic Theater: Deals with historical subjects or meters and employs great modernists. Main proponents were Eduardo Marquina, Francisco Villaespesa, and the Machado brothers.
• Comic Theater: Notable authors include the brothers Álvarez Quintero and Carlos Arniches, with his "grotesque tragedy."

Innovative Theater

• Ramón María del Valle-Inclán: His dramatic production began with dramas of decline (El marqués de Bradomín - The Marquis of Bradomín), passed through dramas of the Galician environment (Comedia bárbara, Divinas palabras - Divine Words), and farces (La marquesa Rosalinda - The Marchioness Rosalinda), culminating in the esperpento. The esperpento deforms certain aspects of character and situations, producing a caricatured vision, alternately comic and macabre. Valle-Inclán's esperpentos include Luces de bohemia (Bohemian Lights, 1920), Los cuernos de don Friolera (The Horns of Don Friolera, 1921), Las galas del difunto (The Deceased's Finery, 1926), and La hija del capitán (The Captain's Daughter, 1927), the last three published together under the title Martes de carnaval (Carnival Tuesday) in 1930.
• Federico García Lorca: His dramatic production expresses the problems of life and history through a language loaded with connotations.
  • His farces develop the conflict of arranged marriages between the old and the young.
  • In his "impossible theater" (El público - The Public, Así que pasen cinco años - When Five Years Pass, and Comedia sin título - Play Without a Title), he shows the influence of surrealism.
  • His tragedies and dramas (Bodas de sangre - Blood Wedding, Yerma, and La casa de Bernarda Alba - The House of Bernarda Alba) develop in a rural environment where natural forces impose a tragic outcome.