Spanish Poetry Since 1400

Introduction

During the fifteenth century, Spain’s mercurial transformation into a world power was the direct result of having achieved national unification (1492)—a reality that took more than seven centuries of armed conflict between the various Christian principalities scattered throughout the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula and the powerful Muslim caliphates that dominated virtually all of Spain for several centuries following the Moors’ initial invasion in 711. As Spain found itself emerging into a modern state whose strong central government was busy removing the last medieval vestiges from its newly created empire (thus ushering in an era of unsurpassed economic prosperity), so, too, in the field of art and literature, a new awareness of the ancient Greek and Latin masters was taking root.

Fifteenth and sixteenth centuries

The two men most responsible for introducing Spain to a new spirit of Humanism via Greek, Latin, and Italian literary traditions were Juan Boscán (c. 1490-1542) and Garcilaso de la Vega (1501-1536).

Whereas 1492 marked the political birth of modern Spain, the year 1543 may have marked Spain’s cultural rebirth into the Humanistic tradition that had been eclipsed until its rediscovery a century earlier by the great fifteenth-century Italian poets. With the publication of Las obras de Boscán y algunas de Garcilasso de la Vega repartidas en quatro libros (1543; the works of Boscán and some of Garcilaso de la Vega), a wholly new poetic vision was introduced into Spanish literature. To appreciate the magnitude of change that Boscán and Garcilaso brought to sixteenth-century Spanish poetry, both in its form and content, one must recall the tradition from which their revolutionary poetics were born.

Only in the fifteenth century did the Spanish literary lyric appear as an independent written work of art. Before then, the Castilian verse was dominated, for the most part, by the fourteenth-century romance (ballad) and the thirteenth-century villancico. While traveling troubadours sang of the joys and woes associated with courtly love, clerics created their own tradition focused on more spiritual themes, such as the many miracles of the Blessed Virgin. In 1445, the first important collection of Castilian verse was published, the Cancionero de Baena (songbook of Baena). Numerous canciones de amor (love songs) were recorded here, echoing the earlier ballads in theme and form.

The Marquis of Santillana and Juan de Mena were two exceptions to these traditions. They transcended the traditional compositions recorded in the Cancionero general (1511; general songbook), a collection of fifteenth-century verse filled with villancicos and ballads that reflected the love songs of the earlier troubadour tradition. Santillana is credited with the first sonnets written in a language other than Italian, while Mena’s allegorical and philosophical poems are sprinkled with frequent classical allusions and a Latinized vocabulary.

The poetic revolution that was to characterize sixteenth-century Spain, however, did not truly begin until 1526, when the Spanish poet Boscán met with the Venetian ambassador to the court of Charles V, Andreas Navagero. At this time, Boscán was introduced to the new Italianate forms with their classical focus on humans and nature. Although it would be seventeen years before Navagero’s revolutionary seeds would bear Spanish fruit, the poetic manifesto contained within Las obras de Boscán y algunas de Garcilasso de la Vega repartidas en quatro libros heralded a radical change in the exterior form of poetic expression and promised a vibrantly new vision of humankind.

Boscán found that the Italian hendecasyllable created a cadence much less emphatic than the traditional Castilian octosyllable, allowing the poet to express subtleties of rhythm and rhyme previously unattainable. The flexibility afforded by this new meter complemented the new aesthetic sensibility that Boscán and Garcilaso brought to Castilian verse. For example, in Boscán’s Canzoniere (songbook), which consists of ninety love sonnets and ten canzones (songs), the theme of human love is explored in all its splendor. Unchecked by reason, it is a passion fraught with pain and suffering; when properly expressed, this same love brings peace and joy to the human spirit.

Garcilaso, too, reflects this newfound faith in humanity’s ultimate worth and goodness. Innovative in form (he introduced into Spanish verse, among other meters, the five-line stanza known as the lira), his poetry evokes a landscape whose sensuously bucolic images and mythological allusions have forever changed the course of Spanish poetry. Indeed, Garcilaso might be considered the cornerstone on which modern Spanish verse has been built.

Following Garcilaso’s lead, two schools of Castilian poets developed—one centered in Salamanca and the other in Seville. Whereas the Salamanca group (known as El Broncense), headed by Francisco Sánchez, was known for moralistic and philosophical perspectives exemplified in the work of its most renowned poet, Luis de León, the Sevillan poets, whose outstanding figure was Fernando de Herrera, were known for their sensuous musicality and erudite knowledge of classical mythology. Both groups put unwavering faith in Aristotelian poetics: Art was to imitate nature, not the ephemeral happenings associated with the senses but the ideals and principles that lay hidden beneath the surface. Masters such as Horace, Vergil, and Petrarch were models for expressing universal themes.

Distinct from the schools of Salamanca and Seville but of equal quality was a specialized tradition of mystical verse. The Carmelite monk Saint John of the Cross (1542-1591) represents the zenith of this uniquely Spanish poetic expression. In his masterpiece, Cántico espiritual (c. 1577-1586; A Spiritual Canticle of the Soul, 1864, 1909), based on the Bible’s Song of Solomon, he expressed with erotic intensity the soul’s passionate quest for God. One can detect in the sensuous pastoral imagery produced by Saint John of the Cross the presence of Garcilaso’s eclogues: Even the most religious of poets found themselves enveloped within the growing Humanism of the Renaissance spirit.

The Renaissance reawakened an interest in classical mythology and engendered a renewed sense of national identity. Unlike its neighbors to the west, Spain did not produce an epic comparable to Portugal’s Os Lusíadas (1572; The Lusiads, 1655) by Luís de Camões. One of Spain’s native sons, however, did record the heroic events involving the conquest of Chile. Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana (1569-1590; English translation, 1945) sings the praises of both the conqueror and the vanquished. His vivid account of the heroic deeds accomplished by his Spanish comrades and the valiant defense of the proud Araucanian people places Ercilla y Zúñiga’s poem alongside the other great epics of Western civilization.

Seventeenth century

During the seventeenth century, as Spain’s political and economic prowess began to show the first signs of vulnerability, the stylistic innovations first introduced into Spanish literature by Boscán and Garcilaso were embellished and brought to their ultimate poetic fruition—to the point of excess. The simplicity and clarity of the Renaissance gradually gave way to the complexity and obscurity of the Baroque.

Encouraged by literary academies and an ever-increasing number of literary competitions, poets began to create newer and more unusual images, experiment with traditional word order, and search for subtler allusions. In particular, two main currents dominated seventeenth-century poetic expression: culteranismo and conceptismo. The former is characterized by its emphasis on ornate and complex images, its revolutionary syntax, and its obscure mythological allusions; the latter is characterized by its intellectual and philosophical sophistication. This poetry's many puns and double entendres reveal the conceptistas’ fundamental cynicism and disillusionment with life. For the culteranistas, beauty was found in the most complex of metaphors, whereas for the conceptistas, the truth was expressed in satire and wit.

Of the many poets associated with these two literary tendencies, four overshadow the others because of the quality and depth of their work. The driving force behind the culterano style of poetry was Luis de Góngora y Argote (1561-1627). His name has become synonymous with intricately complex metaphors and tantalizingly obscure images. Góngora’s influence on seventeenth-century Spanish verse was monumental. Like Garcilaso de la Vega a century earlier, Góngora was imitated by virtually all of his fellow poets, even those most vocal in their criticism of his stylistic intricacies.

Although Gongorism is frequently used to describe a type of poetry characterized by excessive ornamentation and artificially complex syntax, Góngora was not guilty of such literary failings. The negative connotations associated with his name more accurately describe the many less gifted poets who attempted to emulate the master’s unique gift for expressing beauty in startling metaphors that dazzled and amazed the sensitive reader. His ability to juxtapose vibrant, concrete images in a world of poetic illusion makes his verse the high point of the Spanish Baroque.

In his two masterpieces, Fábula de Polifemo y Galatea (wr. 1613, pb. 1627; Fable of Polyphemus and Galatea, 1961) and Soledades (wr. 1613, pb. 1627; The Solitudes, 1964)—a projected series of four poems only one of which, written in 1613, was completed—Góngora contrasted human mutability with nature’s lasting beauty and grandeur. His fable about Polyphemus and Galatea is based on a story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (c. 8 CE; English translation, 1567), which recounts the love affair between Acis and Galatea. The jealous Cyclops, Polyphemus, eventually kills Acis, but through the intercession of the gods, the slain Acis is transformed into a stream. Góngora’s version, although true to the original, is much more a celebration of nature’s inherent dynamism and beauty than Ovid’s.

Góngora intended to write four Solitudes but died before completing his second. The first describes a love-smitten youth who comes upon a pastoral wedding celebration as he travels through the countryside. In the fragmentary second poem of the series, the young man is seen visiting with a seafaring family. Although their plot is simple, The Solitudes is rich in subtle allusions and bewildering syntax, which, once properly contemplated, lead the reader to a greater sense of nature’s overpowering majesty.

If Góngora is remembered for his poetic technique's sheer perfection, Lope de Vega Carpio (1562-1635) is remembered for his prodigious creative output. The great lyrical playwright of Spain’s Golden Age, he also composed over sixteen hundred sonnets, several literary epics, ballads, and several volumes of miscellaneous verse. Vega Carpio’s poetry is not as polished as Góngora’s refined verse, but what it lacks in erudition and technical skill, it more than adequately possesses spontaneity and flowing grace.

Still further removed from the ornate images of culteranismo was the epigrammatic style of Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas (1580-1645). Indeed, Quevedo was one of Góngora’s most caustic critics. Unlike his rival, who tried to capture in words the beauty and dynamism of nature, Quevedo was fascinated by humanity’s ugliness and corruption. Rejecting the sensuous style of the culteranistas, he preferred a more austere and elliptical mode of expression, filled with tersely worded puns, that reflected his cynical view of life. The satirical observations and witty wordplay that characterize his poetry exemplify the mode of poetic expression known as conceptismo. Quevedo’s stoicism led him to employ poetry as an effective way to teach his fellow man about the ugly reality of life. If one principal theme runs through Quevedo’s poetry, it is disengaño (disillusionment)—a total disenchantment with the things of this world.

The poet who encompassed most fully the complexity and obscurity of seventeenth-century Spanish verse did not live in Spain but in New Spain (Mexico). Her name was Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (1651-1695). Sor Juana was regarded as one of the New World’s finest examples of seventeenth-century Humanism in a society that favored men. She explored the wonders of science, the mysteries of philosophy, and the marvels of art and literature. Nevertheless, she saw the highest achievements of Renaissance Humanism as ultimately futile. In her major poem, “Primer sueño” (first dream), she expressed, in true culterano style, the human mind’s inability to grasp life’s purpose using purely intellectual or aesthetic activity. Ultimately, for Sor Juana, the things of this world led to disillusionment. What began in the sixteenth century as an optimistic quest for truth and beauty ended at the close of the seventeenth century, with man’s faith in himself deeply shaken, if not shattered.

Eighteenth century

As the eighteenth century approached, Spanish poetry, like the other major literary genres of the time, was in a state of decline. Poets, for the most part, attempted to imitate the dominant styles of the seventeenth century. Just as political decline ultimately led to a change of royal families (the House of Bourbon inherited the Spanish throne in 1700), so, too, the decadence to which Spanish literature had fallen led to serious attempts at literary reform. For example, in 1713, the Royal Academy was founded to protect and guide the Spanish language and was commissioned to produce an authoritative dictionary and grammar.

In 1732, there appeared a journal titled Diario de los literatos de España (diary of the writers of Spain), which, until its demise in 1742, attempted to review and evaluate the literary merit of all the books being printed in Spain at that time. In one of its last editions, it published a work titled Sátira contra los malos escritores de este siglo (satire against the poor writers of this century), which condemned the Baroque excesses associated with the poetry of the day. Including French terms in this critical diatribe suggests a knowledge of the French neoclassical critic Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux.

The most significant evidence of literary reform, however, appeared in 1737 with the publication of Ignacio de Luzán’s La poética o reglas de la poesía (poetics or rules of poetry). This work criticizes the inordinate use of artificially contrived metaphors, unnecessarily complex syntax, and unusually difficult puns characteristic of many contemporary poets. Rejecting the sophisticated cynicism of Gabriel Alvarez de Toledo (1662-1714) and the bitterly satirical language of Diego de Torres Villarroel (1694-1770), Luzán advocated for clear and concise language. Literature, besides pleasing and entertaining the reader, should instruct him. Above all, a literary work should exhibit good taste. Exaggeration, either in form or in content, was to be avoided since order and symmetry best reflected the natural harmony existing within the universe.

Luzán’s poetics, like those of his French counterpart, Boileau, were an attempt to return to the clear and measured writing that had characterized the ancient Greek and Latin poets. Whereas France looked more toward classical antiquity for its models, Spain rediscovered its classical writers, such as Garcilaso de la Vega and Luis de León.

The neoclassical reformation championed by Luzán did not bear fruit until the second half of the eighteenth century. Of the many poets who followed the dictates of neoclassical good taste, Nicolás Fernández de Moratín Leandro Fernández de Moratín (1737-1780) was the most respected and influential. Known primarily for his innovative ideas and techniques in drama, Moratín was a key figure in the popularization of Luzán’s poetic theory. Moratín formed a group of writers known as the Tertulia de la Fonda de San Sebastián, among whom were such leading literary figures as José Cadalso and Tomás de Iriarte. From their literary soirées came some of the most important critical essays in support of the neoclassical style of writing.

Perhaps the most appropriate genre for expressing the neoclassical ideal of instructing while entertaining was the fable. At any rate, the second half of the eighteenth century saw the publication of two collections of fables, the second of which was a direct defense of Luzán’s poetics. From 1781 to 1784, Félix María de Samaniego (1745-1801) published his Fábulas morales (moral fables), imitating classical and modern fabulists. In 1782, Tomás de Iriarte published his highly original Fábulas literarias (literary fables), expressing his ideas on literature. In his fables focusing on poetry, he satirized those poets who disregarded the neoclassical call for clarity, order, and balance.

The eighteenth-century neoclassical emphasis on order and sobriety reflected the spirit of the times. The political and civil reforms instituted by the newly installed House of Bourbon established an atmosphere of well-being throughout the country. In particular, the highly progressive reign of Charles III (1759-1788), whose economic and social reforms helped instill within the Spanish people a newfound feeling of prosperity and stability based on intelligent planning and careful implementation of programs, supported the neoclassicists’ demand for clear and orderly writing. Poetry, it was thought, like all meaningful elements of society, should not only amuse and distract but also provide the useful function of instructing its citizenry. However, to the neoclassicists’ chagrin, Charles III’s well-ordered society soon found itself again beset by turmoil and confusion. As the eighteenth century ended, a new literary mentality emerged.

Nineteenth century

The first two decades of the nineteenth century saw Spain’s traditional political system collapse, perhaps best described as a form of enlightened despotism. Following this, an onslaught of radical political and social changes undermined the years of apparent prosperity and stability associated with eighteenth-century Bourbon Spain.

In 1807, heeding the unwise advice of his prime minister, Manuel de Godoy, Bourbon monarch Charles IV allowed Napoleon’s forces to enter Spain (Napoleon’s ostensible target was Portugal). Six years of foreign rule and a brutalizing civilian-led revolution followed Napoleon’s entry into Spain. Once having ousted the foreign monarch (Joseph Bonaparte) and restored the legitimate Bourbon heir (Ferdinand VII) to the Spanish throne, Spain experienced even greater political turmoil. Ferdinand ruled with the absolutism of his predecessors but lacked their vision and dedication. The liberal revolutionary groups that had fought valiantly for restoration felt betrayed by their conservative monarch. After six years of absolutist rule, a coup d’état in 1820 ushered in three years of liberal reforms. With France’s help, Ferdinand regained his throne and ruled until he died in 1833. After his death, although the pendulum was to swing in favor of the liberals, Spain suffered no less than three civil wars (the Carlist Wars) over royal succession. What was once a well-organized and well-integrated society soon became polarized into opposing camps: afrancesados (French supporters) versus those favoring restoration, absolutists versus constitutionalists, conservatives versus liberals. The resulting chaos found its intellectual and aesthetic expression in the Romantic movement, which reflected in its form and content the turbulent reality of early nineteenth-century Spain.

In the field of Spanish poetry, two men in particular foreshadowed the literary revolution of the nineteenth century. Manuel José Quintana (1772-1857) and Juan Nicasio Gallego (1777-1853), although trained in the rigors of neoclassicism, infused new vigor into their verse by unabashedly singing the praises of their homeland. Quintana, in his “A España” (“Ode to Spain”), and Gallego, in his “Al dos de Mayo” (to the second of May), took the first steps in the transition from a poetics dominated by reason to one that was primarily an expression of deep emotion.

Not until Ferdinand VII’s death did Spanish poetry begin to free itself in earnest from the artificial bonds imposed on it by the neoclassical demand for moderation in the name of good taste. With Isabel II’s accession to the throne in 1833, many of the liberals who were formerly living in exile in England, France, and Germany returned to Spain, bringing a radically uninhibited style of poetry.

Nineteenth-century Romanticism was unquestionably a love affair with freedom. It was a direct response to and rejection of the literary norms of the day. Like most reactions, however, it frequently defined itself in terms of what it rejected. Since eighteenth-century neoclassicism produced poetry refined by reason, Romanticism strived to express poetry unshackled by reason’s tyranny. In its place, the Romantics exalted human feelings, emotions, instincts, intuition, and imagination—those qualities that had waited so long to be liberated. Therefore, the freedom of the Romantics was freedom from the established rules of society, be they political, social, or aesthetic. Like Ferdinand VII’s political tyranny, which ultimately coerced the majority of liberals to search for a means of escape via self-imposed exile, so, too, reason’s tyranny over free poetic expression ultimately led the young Romantics to seek refuge by escaping into private worlds, unencumbered by the demands and responsibilities that society exacts from its members.

Although the Romantic movement, which dominated the first half of the nineteenth century in Spain, produced many fine poets, three are of major literary importance: Ángel de Saavedra (better known by his title, Duque de Rivas, 1791-1865), José Zorrilla y Moral (1803-1842), and José Zorrilla y Moral (1817-1893). These three men revolutionized both the form and content of nineteenth-century Spanish poetry.

Ángel de Saavedra, in his Romances históricos (1841; historical ballads), turned the focus of Spanish verse from the ancient Greek and Latin myths to Spain’s heroic past. Rejecting previous generations' artificial syntax and Latinized vocabulary, he captured his country’s customs in a lively language that complemented its exciting history.

Accompanying their interest in Spain’s glorious past was the Romantics’ fondness for expressing intimately personal feelings. One of Spain’s greatest lyric poets, José de Espronceda expressed more vividly than most his deepest emotions. One notes immediately, both in his disregard for traditional forms and in his rebellious themes and motifs, his unbounded love of freedom and spontaneity. Five poems in particular manifest his almost adolescent contempt for any form of coercion. In his “Canción del pirata” (“Song of the Pirate”), “Canto del cosaco” (cossack’s song), “El mendigo” (“The Beggar”), “El reo de muerte” (“The Condemned to Die”), and “El Verdugo” (“The Headsman”), he expressed a deep desire to be freed from society’s dominion over the individual. In his later work, “A Jarifa en una orgía” (“To Harifa, in an Orgy”), one of the most pessimistic poems ever composed in Spanish, he views death as the only path to freedom.

From Zorrilla, known principally for his dramatic reworking of Tirso de Molina’s El burlador de Sevilla (1630; The Trickster of Seville, 1923), titled Don Juan Tenorio (1844; English translation, 1944), Spain received not only some of its most beautiful lyric poetry but also a series of legends that recorded many of the memorable deeds associated with Spain’s colorful and turbulent past.

As the political turmoil of the first half of the nineteenth century gradually subsided and Spanish society again began to experience relative stability, poetic expression showed signs of losing much of its revolutionary fervor. In the late nineteenth century, poetry became less lyrical as it attempted to involve itself with philosophical, political, and social questions discussed in the novel, the recently rediscovered genre whose popularity was rapidly increasing. To be more relevant, poets such as Ramón de Campoamor (1817-1901) and Gaspar Núñez de Arce (1832-1903) began to focus on philosophical and social issues.

Two notable exceptions to that trend were the Andalusian poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer (1836-1870) and the Galician poet Rosalía de Castro (1837-1885). In many ways, their delicate lyricism bridged Romanticism's high-spirited and spontaneous verse with the subtler subjectivism associated with Symbolism and the measured plasticity of Parnassianism.

In particular, Bécquer might be considered the culmination of the Romantic movement since his Rimas (1871; Poems, 1891; better known as The Rhymes, 1898) expressed the most intimate feelings. In a sense, Bécquer’s verse is Romanticism come of age. Whereas Espronceda’s raison d’être as a poet lay in his puerile attempt to escape the harsher realities of life by vicariously experiencing, through his verse, the imagined lives of such exotic personalities as a gun-toting pirate, an arrogant beggar, and a defiant prisoner, Bécquer drew from the springs of his soul to express a precise, melodic language that ultimately transcended words—Beauty, Love, Poetic Creation. With delicate nuances of light and color, sound and rhythm, he created some of the most beautiful images in Spanish poetry.

Twentieth century: 1898-1936

Bécquer dominated European Romanticism in the late nineteenth century. During his reign, Romanticism mainly adopted the Spanish style. Current European literary trends, including French liberalism, had influenced Spanish Romantic poets. Bécquer’s style eventually gave way to costumbrismo, the depiction of customs and manners, and realism replaced Romanticism as prose became the dominant form. Realism characterized Spanish prose fiction during the early twentieth century.

The literary movements of the fin de siglo passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century were marked by political, philosophical, and artistic turbulence. In 1898, Spain lost its last colonies. Since the seventeenth century, Spain’s expansionism was in decline. The generación del 98, or Generation of 1998, rose as both a literary and a philosophical movement of writers who referred to 1898 as a turning point in Spanish society. They searched for causes of its decline and ways to regain their nation’s past glories. Together, the generation of 1998 and the generación del 27, or the generation of 1927, created a kind of Silver Age that approached the literary and artistic excellence of the masters of the Spanish Golden Age. This era of literary brilliance and prolific creative activity reigned until 1936, stifled by the onset of the Spanish Civil War.

Literary influences shifted from costumbrismo and realism to Modernismo, like French Symbolism and artistic and musical impressionism. At the turn of the century, a group of young writers proclaimed a moral and cultural rebirth for their defeated homeland. Through studying the simplicity and austerity of Castilian life, these writers found the essence of Spain. They sought to portray it through a direct and compact style. The literary association rejected most European literary and aesthetic trends but embraced political liberalism.

The Basque poet and prose writer Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1864-1936) anticipated the essential themes of existentialism. Unamuno believed that the personal aspects of history were eternal because they sustain the temporal events of public history. This concept of intrahistoria permeates his poems. Their symbolic elements acquire universal relevance as they relate to the Spanish experience between 1898 and 1936. After a spiritual crisis reflected in En torno al casticismo (1902), Unamuno sought to identify a popular protagonist. This “intrahistorical” way of life defined the Spanish spirit for his literary and spiritual generation.

Azorín (José Martínez Ruiz, 1873-1967) coined the phrase generación del 98. In his overriding goal of defining the eternal qualities of Spanish life, Azorn depicted the Castilian people and countryside with impressionistic sensitivity that captured the beauty of ordinary life. His poetry acquired an original musicality rooted in folk songs—its lyrical quality results from an adept application of rhyme and meter. Azorín is best known for his novels, but he promoted the works of poets whose idealism rebelled against bourgeois styles and themes.

Antonio Machado (1875-1939) founded modern Spanish poetry by blending symbolism with profound meditations on time and place and concern for the nation’s future. His original voice paved the way for the poets of the Generation of ’27 to experiment with rhyme and meter to express their particular voice. His poems are lucid meditations that evoke a harsh yet sharply defined Spanish landscape. Campos de Castilla (1912; The Castilian Camp, 1982) was inspired by his wife. The transition from lyricism to reflection is evident in the 1924 publication of Nuevas canciones (new songs), which followed Soledades, galerías, y otros poemas (1907; Solitudes, Galleries, and Other Poems, 1987). Together, they paint the Castilian landscape with clarity and sonority. He also wrote plays and translated French literature with his brother, the poet Manuel Machado (1874-1947). Tragedy marked his later works: Machado’s wife died after five years of marriage from a sudden illness. Antonio died in 1939 while fleeing from the Spanish Civil War with his brother and mother, all exiled loyalists and victims of the national tragedy.

Juan Ramón Jiménez (1881-1958) wrote symbolic poetry. Over time, he developed an abstract and complex lyricism. He expanded the limits of language to convey truth through nature’s images. A later stage of his work evidences his images whittled away to their essence. In Platero y yo (Platero and I, 1956), published to popular acclaim in 1914, a young poet is followed by a donkey during his reveries and idyllic journeys. Other works demonstrate the transformation and maturity of his style and structure. Eternidades in 1918 and Belleza in 1923 contemplated the changing face of beauty. He did not publish new works until the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War when General Francisco Franco sent him to the United States as a cultural attaché. He taught at the University of Maryland and the University of Puerto Rico until his wife died in 1956, soon after he won the Nobel Prize. His last major work, Dios deseando y deseante (1964), identifies with a universal consciousness that seeks beauty in nature.

The Generation of ’98 initiated a cultural revival. This ongoing literary movement gained momentum as it was energized by the new wave of writers from 1927 until the 1936 civil war. As literary revisionists, they were responsible for renewing Spanish themes and traditions as they exposed their nation to European modernity.

The transition to the twentieth century led to European cultural influences despite Iberian isolationism. José Ortega y Gasset (1883-1955) criticized the “Europeanization” of Spain with a landmark essay, La deshumanización del arte (1925; The Dehumanization of Art, 1948), which criticizes literary realism. According to Ortega y Gasset, the Industrial Revolution of the early nineteenth century led to the confusion of life with art so that art represented reality. Through dehumanization, literature's narrative and descriptive elements are removed and devalued. This approached the avant-garde European movements such as Futurism, creating a marginal literature that gained popularity during the first decades of the twentieth century. Spanish translations of works by James Joyce, Maxim Gorky, André Gide, and Marcel Proust were popular.

The tercentenary of the death of the Golden Age master poet Góngora began a new poetic age. Literary and artistic genius coincided in Madrid during the second decade of the new era. The surrealist Catalonian artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989) lived and worked with Zaragozan Luis Buñuel (1900-1983) and Federico García Lorca in the Residencia de Estudiantes (student residence) area in Madrid. The creative geniuses of several more residents in this neighborhood fed the intellectual atmosphere. The group of poets known as the Generation of ’27 was founded in this creative community. Not since the seventeenth century’s Golden Age had such a preeminent group of poets come together. Jorge Guillén (1893-1984), García Lorca (1898-1936), Pedro Salinas (1891-1951), Rafael Alberti (1902-1999), Vicente Aleixandre (1898-1984), Dámaso Alonso (1898-1990), Luis Cernuda (1902-1963), and Gerardo Diego (1896-1987) were among the major poets.

Several literary movements characterized this generation. The European avant-garde and cinematographic realism inspired them stylistically. French Symbolism and Eastern European Dadaism influenced their approaches to art and its societal role. The concept of art for art’s sake gained acceptance. As a result, art was dehumanized. The role of the symbol or metaphor was not transcendent but ephemeral. The metaphor was elevated to serve a central temporal function in poetry. This symbolic impact had political implications. During the first phase of the movement, from 1920 to 1927, the poets distinguished themselves from their predecessors with their new poetic vision. Their poems were politically motivated during the second phase, from 1927 to 1936. The creation of the Second Republic and the weakening of the bourgeoisie inspired them politically to envision a societal and aesthetic revolution in which art was the patrimony of the people.

The most emblematic poet and dramatist with enduring international prominence is Federico García Lorca. From 1919 until his death, García Lorca devoted himself to creative activity in the Residencia de Estudiantes. Flamenco andaluz and the Gypsy culture influenced his poetry. His publication of Romancero gitano, 1924-1927 (1928; The Gypsy Ballads of García Lorca, 1951, 1953) gained for him international fame. A few years later he visited New York and related the similarities between the spirituals of Harlem and the cante jondo, or deep song of the Gypsy culture. The collections Poema del cante jondo (1931; Poem of the Gypsy Seguidilla, 1967) and Poeta en Nueva York (1940; Poet in New York, 1940, 1955) resulted from his American experience. He established the theater company La Barraca, which toured throughout Spain. At the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, Franquista soldiers tortured and murdered García Lorca soon after assassinating his brother-in-law, the mayor of Granada. His poems and plays were burned and banned until the end of Franco’s reign.

The Spanish Civil War destroyed many of these poets’ utopian dreams and lives. García Lorca’s assassination by the Franquistas came to symbolize the destruction of the nation's creative hopes. Alberti, Cernuda, Salinas, Guillén, Rosa Chacel, and María Zambrano were forced into exile. The nation torn apart by Franco’s brutal and intolerant fascist regime was gradually regenerated after almost fifty years of franquismo. Despite the domestic tragedies, the nation’s banished intellectuals were extraordinarily prolific in exile.

Vicente Aleixandre, the winner of the Nobel Prize in 1977, was the lone member of the Generation of ’27 to remain in Spain during franquismo. He served as a mentor and spiritual guide for the succeeding postwar generation. In 1933, he won Spain’s national prize for literature. His greatest work, which led to his nomination for the Nobel Prize, was Sombra del paraíso (1944; Shadow of Paradise, 1987). Aleixandre’s imagery of human pain and horror contrasts with nature's immutable power and harsh reality. Loss, sorrow, and despair characterize this stage of poetic production. Without overtly political imagery, the Spanish Civil War experience was acutely portrayed. Aleixandre’s later works revealed elements of Surrealism. This technique enabled him to escape the desolation of a lost paradise and envision a peaceful and whole Spain.

Alonso developed the concept of “poetry for the people.” He communicated with the reader by abandoning the ivory tower and humanizing his poetry. Alonso used free verse, lexical variation, and rationalism to counter the trend toward Surrealist poetry. His major works include Poemas puros: Poemillas de la ciudad (1921), influenced by the work of Jiménez and Machado, and Hijos de la ira (1944), an intellectual inquiry into the role of humans in society and into their relationship to God. In his final work, Duda de amor sobre el Ser Supremo (1985), Alonso reflects upon his imminent death and the soul's eternal nature.

Salinas' poetry can be divided into three stages. His early work includes Presagios (1923), influenced by Jiménez. Fábula y signo (1931) begins the reference to the “beloved” to continue a quest toward attaining higher goals through his poetic voice. His second phase is characterized by love poetry: La voz a tí debida (1933; My Voice Because of You, 1976) and Razón de amor (1936), in which love is reinvented. The concept of “I” and “you” is redefined by the interplay of words. For Salinas, love means living with each other. During the third stage of his poetic evolution, Salinas was concerned with the poet's role and the philosophical search for permanence through art. In El contemplado (1946; The Sea of San Juan: A Contemplation, 1950), he contemplated the sea through a series of philosophical reflections. In Todo más claro y otros poemas (1949), Salinas conducted a dialogue with nature and, in “Cero,” contemplated the horrors of human nature.

Guillén wrote a poetry series in five sections collected over thirty years as Cántico: Fe de vida (1928, 1936, 1945, 1950; Canticle, 1997). The series reflects his faith in a life centered on nature. Clamor: Tiempo de historia (1957-1963; includes Maremágnum, 1957; Que van a dar en el mar, 1960; and A la altura de las circunstancias, 1963), translated in 1997 as Clamor, reflects on human history and the fall of humanity into chaos. Homenaje (1967; Homage, 1997) reflects on the generous nature of art to forgive and eventually conquer human frailties.

The poetry of Cernuda serves as a biography of his lifelong spiritual journey. In Perfil del aire (1927), he follows the model of Bécquer as he expresses internal and external realities. Un río, un amor (1929) displays Surrealist characteristics, and he laments the absence of love here. The pessimistic tone of Donde habite el olvido (1934) reflects the predominant theme, the death of love. Cernuda’s Invocaciones (1935) seeks to evade reality; here, the poet’s pessimism leads him to despair.

Diego developed his own style of creationist poetry. Creationist techniques dominate in Imagen (1922). He won the Premio Nacional de Literatura after publishing Versos humanos (1925; human verses). In honor of his poetic icon Góngora, Diego published Antología poética en honor de Góngora (1927). Góngora’s influence is evident in Diego’s postwar work Alondra de verdad (1941; lark of truth). These later sonnets paid homage to their Golden Age models as they followed traditional patterns of rhyme and meter rather than the creationist forms and syntax of Diego’s early poems.

Spanish poet and author Francisca Aguirre Benito published several works in the twentieth century, earning the 2009 Poetry Prize for her poem "Real Sitio and Villa de Aranjuez," the 2011 National Poetry Award, and the 2018 National Prize for Spanish Letters. Her nephew, Carlos Martínez Aguirre, is also a Spanish poet who is well-known for his works "El Peregrino" (2014) and "El Significado de las Lágrimas" (2020).

Mid-twentieth century onward

Miguel Hernández (1910-1942) represents the transition from the Generation of ’27 to the succeeding generation. His poetry was influenced by the Golden Age genius Góngora. Henández blended formal structure with surreal imagery. He befriended García Lorca, Aleixandre, and the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda. After serving with the losing army of the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War, Hernández fled to Portugal. He was captured and imprisoned until his death. When offered his freedom only if he would be exiled forever from Spain, Hernández refused. His most original poetry, written while in prison, reveals unwavering compassion and faith in the human spirit. It was published posthumously as Cancionero y romancero de ausencias (1958; Songbook of Absences, 1972).

During the franquismo, writers within Spain either followed Franco’s political policies or devoted their creative energy to resistance. Luis Rosales (1910-1992) and Leopoldo Panero (1909-1962) wrote insular poetry with aesthetic objectives. Blas de Otero (1916-1979), Gabriel Celaya (1911-1991), and José Hierro (1922-2002) were influenced by Social Realism.

Salvador Espriu (1910-1992) was stylistically influenced by the avant-garde in his prose poems characterized by nationalist themes. The group of Novísimos (“very recent ones”) experimented with avant-garde poetry and developed a particular style. This regional literary and philosophical movement was led by José María Castellet, a Catalonian critic. The Novísimo phenomenon represents the politicized literary milieu of the postwar generation. Major poets were Catalonian Socialists who considered Barcelona the center of avant-garde creativity. The Editorial Seix Barral supported their efforts by publishing and distributing their poetry and prose.

Spain lacks a literary tradition for women writers. Some twentieth-century female poets and prose writers have distinguished themselves despite the success of their male counterparts. The philosopher, essayist, and poet María Zambrano (1904-1991) and novelist and poet Rosa Chacel (1898-1994) have distinguished themselves among their male literary peers with many national honors.

The women writers during the Republic include Chacel and Mercè Rodoreda (1908-1983). Women who wrote during franquismo include Carmen Laforet (1921-2004), Ana María Matute (1926-2014), Elena Quiroga (1921-1995), and Carmen Martín Gaite (1925-2000). In her essay “Hipótesis sobre una escritura diferente” (hypothesis about a different writing), Marta Traba finds a textual difference between the works of male and female writers. She finds that feminine poetics link images rather than endow them with symbolic value. Their poetry is more concerned with explanations than interpretations of the universe. Feminine text depends on the impetus of detail to convey meaning. Another feminist critic, Carme Riera, finds stylistic and thematic tendencies in feminine writing. The interplay between subject and object, syntactic repetition, greater lexical variance, and thematic commonalities is addressed by female poets. Riera won the 2015 The Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas (National Prize for Spanish Literature). Another important Spanish poet, Eva Yárnoz, won the Flor de Jara Poetry Award in 2016 for her poetry collection Filiación (2017), and her subsequent work, Cauces del que teje (2019), was a finalist for the César Simón Poetry Award. She also published Cierva como mi muerte in 2023.

Since 1979, the definitive end of the Franco era, poetry production has been more identified with cultural and linguistic groups than by nationalist interests. Catalonia, Galicia, and the Basque provinces have created poetry with regional rather than centralized national identities.

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