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TheGeneration of '27 (Spanish:Generación del 27) was an influential group ofpoets that arose inSpanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work withavant-garde forms of art and poetry.[1] Their first formal meeting took place inSeville in 1927 to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of thebaroque poetLuis de Góngora.[2] Writers andintellectuals paid homage at theAteneo de Sevilla, which retrospectively became the foundational act of the movement.
The Generation of '27 has also been called, with lesser success, "Generation of the Dictatorship", "Generation of the Republic", "Generation Guillén-Lorca" (Guillén being its oldest author and Lorca its youngest), "Generation of 1925" (average publishing date of the first book of each author), "Generation of Avant-Gardes", "Generation of Friendship", etc. According to Petersen, "generation group" or a "constellation" are better terms which are not so much historically restricted as "generation".
The Generation of '27 cannot be neatly categorized stylistically because of the wide variety of genres and styles cultivated by its members. Some members, such asJorge Guillén, wrote in a style that has been loosely called jubilant and joyous and celebrated the instant, others, such asRafael Alberti, underwent a poetic evolution that led him from youthful poetry of a moreromantic vein to later politically engaged verses.
The group tried to bridge the gap between Spanish popular culture and folklore, classical literary tradition and Europeanavant-gardes. It evolved frompure poetry, which emphasized music in poetry, in the vein ofBaudelaire, toFuturism,Cubism,Ultraist andCreationism, to become influenced bySurrealism and finally to disperse in interior and exteriorexile following theCivil War andWorld War II, which are sometimes gathered by historians under the term of the "European Civil War". The Generation of '27 made a frequent use of visionary images,free verses and the so-calledimpure poetry, supported by Pablo Neruda.
In a restrictive sense, the Generation of '27 refers to ten authors,Jorge Guillén,Pedro Salinas,Rafael Alberti,Federico García Lorca,Dámaso Alonso,Gerardo Diego,Luis Cernuda,Vicente Aleixandre,Manuel Altolaguirre andEmilio Prados. However, many others were in their orbit, some older authors such asFernando Villalón,José Moreno Villa orLeón Felipe, and other younger authors such asMiguel Hernández. Others have been forgotten by thecritics, such asJuan Larrea,Pepe Alameda,Mauricio Bacarisse,Juan José Domenchina,José María Hinojosa,José Bergamín orJuan Gil-Albert. There is also the "Other generation of '27", a term coined byJosé López Rubio, formed by himself and humorist disciples ofRamón Gómez de la Serna, including:Enrique Jardiel Poncela,Edgar Neville,Miguel Mihura andAntonio de Lara, "Tono", writers who would integrate after theCivil War (1936–1939) the editing board ofLa Codorniz.
Furthermore, the Generation of '27, as clearly reflected in the literary press of the period, was not exclusively restricted to poets, including artists such asLuis Buñuel, the caricaturistK-Hito, thesurrealist paintersSalvador Dalí andÓscar Domínguez, the painter and sculptorMaruja Mallo, as well asBenjamín Palencia,Gregorio Prieto,Manuel Ángeles Ortiz andGabriel García Maroto, thetorerosIgnacio Sánchez Mejías andJesús Bal y Gay, musicologists and composers belonging to theGroup of Eight, including Bal y Gay,Ernesto Halffter and his brotherRodolfo Halffter,Juan José Mantecón,Julián Bautista,Fernando Remacha,Rosa García Ascot,Salvador Bacarisse andGustavo Pittaluga. There was also the Catalan Group who presented themselves in 1931 under the name ofGrupo de Artistas Catalanes Independientes, includingRoberto Gerhard, Baltasar Samper,Manuel Blancafort,Ricard Lamote de Grignon,Eduardo Toldrá andFederico Mompou.
Finally, not all literary works were written inSpanish: Salvador Dalí and Óscar Domínguez also wrote in French. Foreigners such as the Chilean poetsPablo Neruda andVicente Huidobro, the Argentine writerJorge Luis Borges, and the Franco-Spanish painterFrancis Picabia also shared much with theaesthetics of the Generation of '27.
The Generation of '27 was not exclusively located inMadrid, but rather deployed itself in a geographical constellation which maintained links together. The most important nuclei were in Sevilla, around theMediodía review,Tenerife around theGaceta de Arte, and Málaga around theLitoral review. Others members resided inGalicia,Catalonia andValladolid.
The name "Generation of 1927" identifies poets that emerged around 1927, the 300th anniversary of the death of the Baroque poet Luis de Góngora y Argote to whom the poets paid homage. It sparked a brief flash of neo-Gongorism by outstanding poets like Rafael Alberti, Vicente Aleixandre, Dámaso Alonso, Luis Cernuda, Gerardo Diego and Federico García Lorca.
The Spanish Civil War ended the movement:García Lorca was murdered,Miguel Hernandez died in jail and other writers (Rafael Alberti, Jose Bergamin, León Felipe, Luis Cernuda, Pedro Salinas,Juan Ramón Jiménez, Bacarisse) were forced into exile, although virtually all kept writing and publishing late throughout the 20th century.
Dámaso Alonso andGerardo Diego were among those who reluctantly remained in Spain after theFrancoists won and more or less reached agreements with the new authoritarian and traditionalist regime or even openly supported it, in the case of Diego. They evolved a lot, combining tradition and avant-garde, and mixing many different themes, fromtoreo to music to religious andexistentialist disquiets, landscapes, etc. Others, such asVicente Aleixandre andJuan Gil-Albert, simply ignored the new regime, taking the path of interior exile and guiding a new generation of poets.
However, for many Spaniards the harsh reality ofFrancoist Spain and its reactionary nature meant that the cerebral and aesthetic verses of the Generation of '27 did not connect with what was truly happening, a task that was handled more capably by the poets of theGeneration of '50 and the social poets.
A statue dedicated to the Generation 27 Poets is now inSeville inSpain. The inscription on the monument translates as 'Seville The poets of the Generation of 27'
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