Summary Generation of 27

What is the Generation of '27?

In summary, the Generation of '27 was a group of Spanish poets who emerged around 1927 and had a great influence on Spanish and Latin American culture. This literary group was marked by the renewal and modernization of poetry in Spain.

Among the most prominent poets of the Generation of '27 are Federico García Lorca, Luis Cernuda, Rafael Alberti, Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Dámaso Alonso, Vicente Aleixandre, among others. These poets shared a passion for poetry, Spanish culture and literary tradition, but at the same time they sought to innovate and break with traditional poetic forms.

The Generation of '27 was of great importance in the development of Spanish and Latin American poetry, and its legacy remains relevant today.

Generation '27 Characteristics

They present common traits in terms of life, aesthetics and ideas:

• Relatively similar age.
• Intellectual training.
• In politics, liberal and republican ideas predominate.
• Friendships surround the Student Residence, the Free Institution of Education, where Dalí (painter) and Buñuel (filmmaker) are also found.
• Joint participation in cultural events (Centenario de Góngora) and in magazines such as La Gaceta Literaria and La Revista de Occidente, in Madrid; Coastline in Malaga; Carmen in Santander; and Versо and Prоsa, in Murcia. The existence of the Anthology of Spanish Poetry, composed in 1932 by Gerardo Diego, revealed an aesthetic marked by the aspiration to modernize poetry.
• They were known as teachers Juan Ramón Jiménez, for his ideals of pure poetry, and Ortega y Gasset for his ideas on how to embody art. They are also influenced by surrealism (this art seeks the emergence of what social norms repress).
• Influences of traditional cultured lyric (Cancionero, Jоrge Manrique, Lоpe, Góngоra) and popular (Rоmancero, fоlklore). In addition to Bécquer, Machado, JR Jiménez, Vanguardias.
• His aesthetic ideals were based, at least initially, on aesthetics and a cult of metaphors and images.
• They achieve the synthesis and balance between classic and modern, traditional.
• Diversity of styles, many rules, meaningless metaphors, new stanzas, free verses, folkloric stanzas,...

The Generation of '27 is characterized by a very rich use of the image, they will take the metaphor to levels only comparable to that achieved by the poets of the Golden Age between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries. Compositions such as the song, the eclogue and the sonnet are also recovered from this splendid period.

There is a notable reduction of the verses and the modernist type of verses and stanzas are dispensed with. The free verse (without meter) and the verse (short verse) emerge. The aim is to create rhythm with the repetition of concepts or ideas as well as sentences or syntactic structures.

Stages of the Generation of '27

Regarding the general journey of the group, although there are individual differences, three chronological stages can be established:

Initial stage (until 1927)

This will be the period of aestheticism in which the influences of Góngоra, the pure Poetry of Juan Ramón Jiménez and the avant-garde, also the influences of Bécquer and popular poetry. It is the time of titles such as Manual de Espumas by Gerardо Diego, Sailor on Earth by Rafael Alberti, and Cántico by Jоrge Guillén, published between 1928 and 1950.

From 1928 to the Civil War

The influence of surrealism, mainly through the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and his criticism of Caballo Verde for poetry. He advocates cultural humanism and defends poetry without purity. The lyrics will echo the anguish and desires of rebellion of the poets, as well as the social and political problems that the country is going through (Alberti, Pradоs, Miguel Hernández). Highlights include books such as The Voice Due to You by Pedro Salinas, About the Angels by Rafael Alberti, Poet in New York by García Lоrca), Destruction or Love by Vicente Aleixandre, Where Oblivion Dwells by Luis Cernuda.

After the civil war

Lorca was assassinated and a large part of the group went into exile. However, they maintained a bond of friendship and their poetry shares the expression of existential pain, as well as aesthetic and social concerns. Themes of Spanish nostalgia, dead friends and general uprooting. Thus, we observe a progression from formal interest to emotional interest.

Authors of the Generation of '27

• Pedro Salinas. Poet of intellectual love. The voice due to you and Reason of love.
• Jоrge Guillén. Representative of pure poetry. Canticle and Cry.
• Gerardо Diegо. It combines avant-garde and popular poetry. Foam manual. Real lark.
• Federicо García Lоrca. His poetry revolves around themes of love, suppression of instincts, deception and tragic destiny and is often performed by socially marginalized characters such as gypsies or blacks. Excellent mastery of poetic resources. His poetry is an expression of the tragic feelings of life. At the beginning he combined popular (romantic) and cultured (absurd metaphor) influences, in works such as the Pоema del Cante Jondо and the Rоmancero Gitanо. His second period was marked by the influence of surrealism in his book Poet in New York, where this city symbolizes materialistic and mechanized civilization.
• Raphael Alberti. It began in a line of neo-popular poetry, Sailor on Earth, to later reflect the influence of the avant-garde in Above the Angels. He unifies both tradition and avant-garde forms. He will develop a wide variety of themes and records. His poetry is based on nostalgia for the loss of his homeland and Spain due to the exile he was forced into after the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
• Vicente Aleixandre. Understand poetry as a mode of communication. Highly influenced by Surrealism. Destruction or love and Shadow of Paradise.
• Damaso Alonso. After some early works in the line of pure poetry, he published Hijos de la ira in 1944. In it, a social, rootless, extremely humanized poetry is manifested. He uses a direct and very intense style. This work, along with Shadow of Paradise by Aleixandre, will be a turning point in post-war poetry and will have a decisive influence on the poets of subsequent generations.
• Luis Cernuda. Perfect beauty, loneliness, love, longing for the classical world. Reality and desire is a summary of all his work. Starting with Donde habite el olvido he found a more personal style. He will reject rhyme and very marked rhythms. Tendency towards a certain colloquialism that will link very well with the sensitivity of the young poets of the 20th century.
• Manuel Altolaguirre. Poems from America and Closed Garden
• Emilio Prados. The guest islands and The captive voice.
• Miguel Hernández. He was known as “the people's poet”. He considers himself an epigone of the Generation of '27. He evolved from the influence of Góngora in Perito en lunas, to Viento del pueblo of committed poetry and Cancionero y romcero de asuncias in which he shows us existential anguish. Essentially human feelings and concerns predominate in his poetry.

On the other hand, one of the members of the Generation of 27, Luis Cernuda, will propose a classification divided into four stages:

pure poetry

The poets of this line will understand Pure Poetry as that which remains in the poem after dispensing with everything that is not poetry itself. The poet of 27 seeks to create another reality within the poetic context. He will mainly use metaphor as a literary resource to achieve this goal and create a new reality that unites real and fictional elements.

classicist attitude

In this second stage proposed by Cernuda, poets are interested in classic authors and works, such as: Gonzalo de Berceo, Cervantes, Poema del Mio Cid, Fray Luis de León, the songbooks, the ballads, San Juan de la Cruz, Cervantes and, of course, Luis de Góngora. They will make clear tributes to these authors in their creations and will recover some types of poems such as sonnets. One of the classic authors will be Góngora, not in vain, the name of the group comes from a tribute to this author. They admire his technique and his ingenious ability to handle metaphor and image.

Contact with surrealism

Some poets of the Generation of '27 came into contact with an avant-garde movement called surrealism. This trend aims to evoke in art the world of the subconscious and the dream images of dreams. Many of the poets who were influenced by surrealism denied its connection. We find Vicente Aleixandre with Destruction or Love, or Passion of the Earth. We can also cite Federico García Lorca with Poeta en Nueva York; The forbidden pleasures of Luis Cernuda; and On Angels by Rafael Alberti.

Rehumanization

This period begins in 1930, a time in which the political and literary situation was in a moment of change, since the Second Republic was proclaimed in 1931. To these events we must add the arrival in Europe of two important Latin American poets: César Vallejo and Pablo Neruda, who was appointed consul of Chile in our country. Neruda wrote in his magazine Green Horse for Poetry a manifesto titled On a Poetry Without Purity, in which he was against pure poetry, since he considered that it was for the elites. On the contrary, he will opt for committed poetry that reaches the general public and deals with human problems.

Differences between the Generation of '98 and that of '27

The Generation of '27 and the Generation of '98 are two important literary movements in Spanish culture, although they emerged at different times and historical contexts.

The Generation of '98 was a group of Spanish writers that emerged at the end of the 1898th century and the beginning of the XNUMXth century, at a time of political, social and cultural crisis in Spain. These writers, among whom Miguel de Unamuno, Pío Baroja and Azorín, among others, stand out, reflected on the meaning of Spanish identity and the situation of the country, after the loss of the last colonies in XNUMX.

On the other hand, the Generation of '27 emerged in the 1920s, at a time when Spain was opening up to modernity and the European avant-garde. These poets, such as García Lorca, Alberti, Cernuda and Salinas, among others, were interested in poetry and avant-garde artistic currents and sought a renewal of Spanish literature.

In summary, the Generation of '98 focused on reflection on Spanish identity and the social and political crisis, while the Generation of '27 focused on the renewal of poetry and literature in Spain, seeking new forms of expression.