Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century: Modernity and Beyond

University of Kentucky UKnowledge Spanish Literature European Languages and Literatures 1995 Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century: Modernity and Beyond Andrew Debicki University of Kansas Click here to let us know how access to this document benefits ou.y Thanks to the University of Kentucky Libraries and the University Press of Kentucky, this book is freely available to current faculty, students, and staff at the University of Kentucky. Find other University of Kentucky Books at uknowledge.uky.edu/upk. For more information, please contact UKnowledge at [email protected]. Recommended Citation Debicki, Andrew, "Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century: Modernity and Beyond" (1995). Spanish Literature. 31. https://uknowledge.uky.edu/upk_spanish_literature/31 STUDIES IN ROMANCE LANGUAGES: 37 John E. Keller, Editor Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century Modernity and Beyond ANDREW P. DEBICKI THE UNIVERSITY PRESS OF KENTUCKY Publication of this book was made possible by a grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities. Copyright © 1994 by The University Press of Kentucky Scholarly publisher for the Commonwealth, serving Bellarmine College, Berea College, Centre College of Kentucky, Eastern Kentucky University, The Filson Club, Georgetown College, Kentucky Historical Society, Kentucky State University, Morehead State University, Murray State University, Northern Kentucky University, Transylvania University, University of Kentucky, University of Louisville, and Western Kentucky University. Editorial and Sales Offices: Lexington, Kentucky 40508-4008 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Debicki, Andrew Peter. Spanish poetry of the twentieth century : modernity and beyond / Andrew P. Debicki p. cm. — (Studies in Romance languages ; 37) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 0-8131-1869-7 (alk. paper) 1. Spanish poetry—20th century—History and criticism I. Title. II. Series: Studies in Romance languages (Lexington, Ky.); 37. PQ6085.D398 1994 861'.609—dc20 93-36928 ISBN 0-8131-0835-7 (pbk: alk. paper) Contents Introduction 1 1. The Apogee of Modernity in Spain, 1915-1928 8 2. Currents in Spanish Modernity, 1915-1939 30 3. After the War, 1940-1965 55 4. New Directions for Spanish Poetry, 1956-1970 98 5. The Postmodern Time of the Novisimos, 1966-198 0 134 6. The Evolution of Postmodern Poetry, 1978-1990 179 Conclusion 218 Notes 221 Works Cited 239 Index 249 Introduction Any attempt to construct a literary history at the present time must seem problematic. The very notion of a literary history has been questionable, and questioned, for decades. Analytic critics of the 1940s and 1950s (most no- tably in Spain, Damaso Alonso) argued, rather convincingly, that traditional literary histories obscured the individuality of specific works and invited readers to reduce complex poems to simplistic examples of movements or trends. To some degree, analytic criticism and estiltstica gained support pre- cisely because of their effort to eliminate such historicizing: works as differ- ent as I .A. Richards's Practical Criticism and Damaso Alonso's Poesia espanola, as well as many books of analytic essays, are in some fashion "antihistories," although they did not manage to eliminate the prior genre. But a reading of many positivistic literary histories today confirms the charges made against them and makes clear that those who relied on them for judgments about individual works received inadequate insights. Even the larger patterns that they offered often proved questionable. Yet we continue to seek, in some fashion, ways of setting literary texts in their contexts and organizational schemes that relate individual poems and books to each other and to currents of life and thought. This need has in- creased in recent years, as we have again become aware that the meanings of any poem depend on the circumstances in which it is produced and read, and we have tended to abandon the notion of literature as immutable. Though a traditional history of literary works may be impossible, cultural patterns, ideas, styles, forms, and language do develop in time, and their de- velopment can shed light on texts. Some of the most useful historical works about Spanish poetry of the twentieth century have been, indeed, studies of poetic principles, of styles, of forms, of intellectual climates (see Cipli- jauskaite 1966; Siebenmann; Garcia de la Concha 1987). As we glance back at these and other attempts to situate this poetry, however, we become aware of a second major problem. Almost all historical assessments to date have implicitly assumed the possibility of finding an organizational scheme that would have objective validity. Many scholars attempted to explain why their scheme was more 2 Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century true than others. Yet from our vantage point we realize that any organizational pattern is an artificial construct. Recent criticism has made us aware how the meanings of poems and books are contingent on contexts and readers; any historical patterns formed by such poems and books would be even more contingent. We can only seek structures that will be useful for given purposes, at given times—and not try to discover a permanent order. This awareness may, however, offer me an opportunity not available to traditional literary historians. No longer obligated to discover one true historical pattern, I may change the goal and the questions. I can be free to seek whatever ways of organizing materials will make it easier to read twentieth- century Spanish poetry with insight and appreciation. Since I will no longer have to determine which kind of scheme—generational, modal, periodic, ideological—has absolute validity (none do), I will be able to use and com- bine them selectively and pragmatically. Rather than attempting and failing to construct an objective and permanent literary history, I might succeed at offering the contemporary reader a practical guide to make the task of reading easier. In the process I will also avoid, I hope, the first problem discussed above. Aware of the contingent nature of any interpretation, I will know that any historical generalization will not limit the individuality of a text, but will only provide background to its reading, and thus I will develop my discus- sions accordingly. Free from the obligation of trying to be right, I might thus be able to offer a book that is interesting and helpful (see Fish 180). My purpose, then, is to produce an interpretative history, consciously arranging my presenta- tions in order to make the best case for a reading of Spanish poetry of the twentieth century (more general, but parallel to the cases I have made for readings of individual poets in my earlier work). I will try to make it rea- sonable and nonidiosyncratic enough to invite my reader to share it; beyond that, I leave it to the reader to compensate and modify my judgments. To introduce my interpretation, I must first set a context and a focus. Spanish poetry of the twentieth century has generally been studied in isolation from other literatures and from its European contexts. This occurred, first of all, because critics defined and discussed two specific movements at the turn of the century: modernismo, an aesthetic renewal originating with Ruben Dario in Latin America around 1885 and ending by the early 1900s; and the activity of the Generation of 1898, comprising philosophic and the- matic developments in Spanish letters after the disastrous war with the United States. Attempts to characterize, contrast, and relate these two movements led critics into narrow perspectives and kept them from investigating larger patterns, especially the issue of how Spanish letters fit into the devel- opment of European modernity. Introduction 3 This inquiry became even narrower because Spanish critics organized literary works by the generations of their authors. Based primarily on the theories of Julius Petersen and established in Spain by Jose Ortega y Gasset and his followers, mainly Julian Marias, the generational approach produced schemes made up of many short periods and a literary history char- acterized by frequent reactions by one group against another. It also assumed, at least implicitly, that the works produced by a given generation did not evolve in response to new times and to succeeding generations. Es- pecially when used haphazardly and capriciously, this approach often produced multiple, erratically arranged units, some of which, such as the Generation of 1927, made more sense than others (Generation of 1914, Generation of 1936). As we will see throughout this book, editors and pub- lishers have exaggerated the importance of generations by publishing an- thologies of poets of similar ages (usually accompanied by statements of poetics), making readers and critics perceive the field as a collection of such clusters. The generational approach became even more limiting when it was linked to specific moments in Spanish history. When studying the period after the Spanish Civil War, for example, critics classified poetry by first, second, and third postwar generations; both the fragmentation and the emphasis on an exclusively Spanish event and situation led to isolated judgments and to an ignorance of wider issues applicable to Western literature. To compensate for this isolation and for the fragmentation of literary periods, I have attempted to situate twentieth-century Spanish poetry in the larger context of European modernity. Mine is not the first effort to do so: Gustav Siebenmann took modernity into account in his history of poetic styles, first published in German in 1965. Sensibly rejecting the di- chotomy modernism—Generation of 1898 and pointing to a larger view of Spanish modernity, Siebenmann nevertheless did not examine in detail the modern aesthetic. He also, albeit hesitantly, sought the end of the modern in the 1930s, and he obviously could not see the issue from the (very important) vantage point of developments in the 1970s and 1980s.

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