Generation of '27
A group of Spanish poets and artists who emerged around 1927, joining avant-garde experimentation with Spain’s literary traditions.
Federico García Lorca: A Spanish poet and playwright whose work joined popular Andalusian traditions with modernist experimentation. His poetry and plays made him the group’s best-known member.
Third Centenary of Luis de Góngora: A 1927 commemoration of the Spanish Baroque poet Luis de Góngora by younger writers and artists. The gathering that inspired the group’s name also signaled its interest in literary inheritance.
Spanish Baroque literature: Spanish writing of the seventeenth century, marked by ornate styles and intense rhetorical invention. Its formal resources, especially Góngora’s, became material for the group’s modern poetry.
Spanish Civil War: The 1936–1939 conflict between Spain’s Republican government and Nationalist forces led by Francisco Franco. The war fractured the group through exile, political persecution, and Lorca’s murder.
Rafael Alberti: A Spanish poet whose work moved from popular lyric forms to surrealism and political poetry. His changing styles exemplify the group’s range.
Luis de Góngora: A Spanish Baroque poet known for elaborate syntax, metaphor, and learned vocabulary. The group’s tribute to Góngora made his difficult poetry a modern source of inspiration.
Surrealism: An artistic movement that explored dreams, unconscious thought, and unexpected juxtapositions. Surrealism supplied several members with techniques for disrupting ordinary poetic logic.
Spanish Republican exile: The displacement of Spaniards who left the country after the Republican defeat in the Civil War. Exile separated members and carried their writing into new literary settings.
Pedro Salinas: A Spanish poet and literary scholar known for intellectually refined love poetry. His poetry gives the group’s modern lyric a distinctive intimate voice.
Residencia de Estudiantes: A Madrid cultural institution that hosted students, scientists, writers, and artists in the early twentieth century. Its lectures and social life helped connect several members and their collaborators.