The generations of 98, 14 and 27.
The Generation of ‘98
After the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain was in total schock. They could not believe that they, the once most powerful country in the world, could lose a war to the relatively new country of the United States. They had lost basically everything in the war, their remaining colonies in the Americas and Asia, and a large portion of their Navy was destroyed as well. Because of this enormous loss, they began to believe that Spain needed a great change, and that the way to obtain the change is not through restoring the monarchy. However, instead of looking forward and to Europe, which was much more modern, they believed that they needed to look at when Spain was at the highest of its power. And to them, that meant looking at Castilla, the Castilla of Don Quixote and the Catholic Kings. And many of them wrote with great sorrow, the were unhappy about the situation that they were in and the situation that Spain was in at the time. And many of their poems and stories look back at the traditional stories and myths from Castilla, sometimes it they would do this by using words from that era or traditions from that era. However, they would look to Castilla but put a modern twist on it.
Many of the writers from the Generation of ’98 realized that in order for Spain to radically, they too had to change their writing radically. One of the most famous writers of this group was Ramón del Valle Inclán. He was a playwrite whose most famous play was called “Las Luces de Bohemia”, the play was critical of Spanish society in everyway, from the culture, to the people, to the police and finally the administration.
Another important writer and philosopher was Miguel de Unamuno. He was from Bilbao and eventually became the President of the University of Salamanca. Which was the most important Spanish university at the time. He believed that the way to improve Spain was to look back at Spain when the country was at its peak, and believed that Spain had to return to its traditional values.
Generation of ‘14
The generation of 1914 is generally catagorized of people that didn´t fit in with either the Generation of ’98 or the Generation of ’27. However, that doesn’t mean that this group was not important, one of the most famous Spaniards of all time is considered to be a member of the Generation of ’14, Pablo Picasso. One of the ways that they were different from the Generation of ’98, was that even though they believed that Spain needed a great change, they did not believe that they should look to Castilla, in fact, many of them began to look at the rest of Europe for ideas to change Spain, and to make it better.
Juan Ramón Jimenez, was a writer from Moguer, Huelva, and was a very important member of this Generation. He wrote a book called “Platero y Yo”, about a donkey from Moguer, Huelva. Platero becomes a symbol for all that is simple and good in life. At the start of the Spanish Civil War, Jimenez flees Spain and goes to the United States. In 1950, he moves to San Juan, Puerto Rico, and becomes a professor at the University of Puerto Rico and in 1956, he won the Nobel Prize for literature.
José Ortega y Gasset was a liberal philosopher who believed that Spain needed a revolutionary leader and a radical change in order to catch up with the rest of Europe. He became a fervent supporter of the Second Republic, and was one of the Represenatives in the Congress. Another important writer at the time was Ramón Gomez de la Serna. He was a realist poet from Madrid, who introduced “La Vanguardia” or Avant-Garde to Spain. Avant-Garde, is something that is experimental and always trying to push boundries.
Generation of ‘27
In 1927, a group of Spanish writers met in Seville to mark the 300th anniversary of the death of the Spanish writer, Gongora. The writers that met there were given the name of the “Generación del ‘27”. Many of the men that were members of the Generation of 27 were poets, however there were a couple of painters, such as Salvador Dalí. But just because the majority of them were writers, it does not mean that they wrote similarily, they all had very different styles of writing. However, what tied all of them together was this meeting in 1927 and the fact that they all wanted a change within Spain. Many of the men, wrote for themselves, that is to say, they wrote very personal poetry, that meant a great to them and not necessarily to anybody else. Because of the times they were living in, many of them became politicized, and most of the men would be considered Republicans, and because of that, during the Spanish Civil War, many of them had to leave Spain, or were killed (like Federico Garcia Lorca).
Many of these men had one other thing in common, many of them attended the Instituto de Reformas y Sociales. This was a school that was founded by a man named Giner de los Rios. He wanted to change the public school system in Spain, and to reduce the influence of religion in schools. He created “La Residencia de Estudiantes”, which was a way of thinking, and mainly in the Republican ideology. Also, many of the members of the Generation of ‘14 and ’98 taught there, and therefore the Generation of ’27 receieved a lot of influence from them.