Political Poetry in the Wake of the Second Spanish Republic
Political Poetry in the Wake of the Second Spanish Republic

Author: Grant D. Moss

Publisher: Lexington Books

Published: 2017-12-06

Total Pages: 171

ISBN-13: 1498547710

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From notions of art for art’s sake to committed poetry, it may seem that poets cannot achieve reconciliation between the politics and poetry. However, among committed Communist poets of the 20th century of the Spanish-speaking world, three poets stand out as examples of a search to bring together their political and their poetic commitments: Rafael Alberti, Nicolás Guillén, and Pablo Neruda. Political Poetry in the Wake of the Second Spanish Republic analyzes the simultaneous development of politics and poetics in these three Spanish-language poets as it was nurtured by the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939). Beginning in these years, Alberti, Guillén, and Neruda strove to tackle the challenge of committing to their own independent poetic projects and to their politics at the same time. Later, these three poets maintained their Communist Party affiliation until their deaths and produced collection after collection of quality poetry. Despite the differences in their overall poetic trajectories and projects, the ability to maneuver between politics and poetry without sacrificing either one is common among them. Because of their unique experiences during the time of the Second Spanish Republic in Spain, each author explicitly denounced the injustices that the opposing Franquist forces had committed against the Republic. After the fall of the Republic in 1939, Alberti, Guillén, and Neruda continued to intertwine their politics with their poems only in a less obvious manner. Therefore, each could solidify his position within the poetic canon while at the same time each could maintain his position as a committed (or at least card-carrying) Communist.

Political Poetry in the Wake of the Second Spanish Republic
Political Poetry in the Wake of the Second Spanish Republic

Author: Grant Daryl Moss

Publisher:

Published: 2010

Total Pages:

ISBN-13:

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Abstract: For some, it is a common conception that if a poet includes politics in his poetry then he has degraded it. For others, politics must be included in poetry or it has no purpose. The purpose of this dissertation is to debunk the myths that surround political commitment and poetry; to build up the relationship between poetry and politics. This dissertation explores the simultaneous development of politics and poetics in three Spanish-language poets: Rafael Alberti, Nicolás Guillén, and Pablo Neruda. I argue that the simultaneous development was nurtured by the Second Spanish Republic (1931-1939). Beginning in these years, Alberti, Guillén, and Neruda strove to tackle the challenge of committing to their own independent poetic projects and to their politics simultaneously. Later, these three poets maintained their Communist Party affiliation until their deaths and produced collection after collection of quality poetry. Despite the differences in their overall poetic trajectories and projects, the ability to maneuver between politics and poetry without sacrificing either one is common among them. The poetry of these three artists is not simply political propaganda nor is it "poetry for poetry's sake." In other words, the poetry strives to bring together issues such as communism, anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, class struggle, worker's rights among others; yet for these three authors these topics strengthen their poetics and challenge traditional thought about what poetry is. Because of their unique experiences during the time of the Second Spanish Republic in Spain, each author explicitly turned to denounce the injustices that the opposing Franquist forces had committed against the Republic, a place that had given more rights to workers. After the fall of the Republic in 1939, Alberti, Guillén, and Neruda continued to intertwine their politics with their poems only in a less obvious manner. Therefore, the poets could solidify their position within the poetic canon while at the same time they could maintain their position as committed Communists.

Cervantes, the Golden Age, and the Battle for Cultural Identity in 20th-Century Spain
Cervantes, the Golden Age, and the Battle for Cultural Identity in 20th-Century Spain

Author: Ana María G. Laguna

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2021-07-29

Total Pages: 316

ISBN-13: 1501374931

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Studies that connect the Spanish 17th and 20th centuries usually do so through a conservative lens, assuming that the blunt imperialism of the early modern age, endlessly glorified by Franco's dictatorship, was a constant in the Spanish imaginary. This book, by contrast, recuperates the thriving, humanistic vision of the Golden Age celebrated by Spanish progressive thinkers, writers, and artists in the decades prior to 1939 and the Francoist Regime. The hybrid, modern stance of the country in the 1920s and early 1930s would uniquely incorporate the literary and political legacies of the Spanish Renaissance into the ambitious design of a forward, democratic future. In exploring the complex understanding of the multifaceted event that is modernity, the life story and literary opus of Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) acquires a new significance, given the weight of the author in the poetic and political endeavors of those Spanish left-wing reformists who believed they could shape a new Spanish society. By recovering their progressive dream, buried for almost a century, of incipient and full Spanish modernities, Ana María G. Laguna establishes a more balanced understanding of both the modern and early modern periods and casts doubt on the idea of a persistent conservatism in Golden Age literature and studies. This book ultimately serves as a vigorous defense of the canonical as well as the neglected critical traditions that promoted Cervantes's humanism in the 20th century.

Poetry and Crisis
Poetry and Crisis

Author: Jill Robbins

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2019-12-12

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 148753079X

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On March 11, 2004, Islamist terrorists carried out a massive bombing on Madrid’s largely working-class commuter trains, leaving 191 people dead and more than 1,500 others wounded. This event, known in Spain as 11-M, was the second of three highly visible jihadist attacks on the West between 2001 and 2005, and the first in Europe, occurring just days before the national elections in Spain. Arguing that 11-M marked a critical turning point in Spanish society, this book reveals how poetry played a unique role and reflected a new political and cultural sensibility defined by informal and non-hierarchical networks of communication and memorialization. After the attacks, poems circulated in public spaces in unexpected ways, creating links and relationships that were binding: they were inscribed on banners and monuments; musicalized in anthems, protest songs, and hip-hop music; reproduced on manifestos and blogs; sent by email and text; scribbled on scraps of paper and posted on walls; performed publicly; and painted as graffiti. These forms of expression also resonated strongly with Spanish poets who had already been exploring the possibilities of ethical engagement and aesthetic creation. Poetry and Crisis explores how this essentially poetic sensibility emerged from tragedy, laying the groundwork for similar kinds of affective and grassroots mobilization that continue to grow in Europe today.

This Ghostly Poetry
This Ghostly Poetry

Author: Daniel Aguirre-Otezia

Publisher:

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 9781487518844

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This Ghostly Poetry explores the fraught relationship between poetry and literary history in the context of the Spanish Civil War, its aftermath, and ongoing debates about historical memory in Spain.

Committed Styles
Committed Styles

Author: Benjamin Kohlmann

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2014-08-14

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 0191024635

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Committed Styles offers a new understanding of the politicized literature of the 1930s and its relationship to modernism. It reclaims a central body of literary and critical works for modernist studies, offering in-depth readings of texts by T.S. Eliot and I.A. Richards, as well as by key left-wing authors including William Empson, David Gascoyne, Charles Madge, Humphrey Jennings, and Edward Upward. Building on substantial new archival research, Benjamin Kohlmann explores the deep tensions between modernist experimentation and political vision that lie at the heart of these works. Taking as its focus the work of these writers, the book argues that the close interactions between literary production, critical reflection, and political activism in the decade shaped the influential view of modernism as fundamentally apolitical. Intervening in debates about the long life of modernism, it contends that we need to take seriously the anti-modernist impulse of 1930s left-wing literature even when attention is paid to the formal complexity of these 'committed' works. The tonal ambiguities which run through the politicised literature of the 1930s thus effect not a disengagement from but a more thorough immersion in the profoundly conflicted political commitments of the decade. At the same time, the study shows that debates about the politics of writing in the 1930s continue to inform current debates about the relationship between literature and political commitment.

Poetry and Crisis
Poetry and Crisis

Author: Jill Robbins

Publisher: University of Toronto Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 186

ISBN-13: 148750473X

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Poetry and Crisis argues that the 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid marked a critical turning point in Spanish society, with poetry taking a unique role in reflecting new political and cultural realities.

Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Literatures in English
Edinburgh Companion to Twentieth-Century Literatures in English

Author: Brian McHale

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2006-06-28

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0748627103

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An imaginatively constructed new literary history of the twentieth century.This companion with a difference sets a controversial new agenda for literary -historical analysis. Far from the usual forced march through the decades, genres and national literatures, this reference work for the new century cuts across familiar categories, focusing instead on literary 'hot spots': Freud's Vienna and Conrad's Congo in 1899, Chicago and London in 1912, the Somme in July 1916, Dublin, London and Harlem in 1922, and so on, down to Bradford and Berlin in 1989 (the fatwa against Salman Rushdie, the new digital media), Stockholm in 1993 (Toni Morrison's Nobel Prize) and September 11, 2001.