Spanish Catalan And Spanish American Poetry From Modernismo To The Spanish Civil War

This is a study which compares and evaluates specific landmarks in the history of modern Hispanic literature, with particular reference to Modernismo, the avant-garde, surrealism, political and war poetry, and poetry motifs such as self-reflexivity, essentialism, abstraction and silence. The book investigates the often-invisible Hispanic connection linking the work of the Spanish, Catalan and Spanish-American poet in the 20th century through close readings of selected poems. It makes a plea for a comparative approach in its use of Harold Bloom's theory of the anxiety of influence and gives special attention to Dario's influence on Antonio Machado and Juan Ramon Jimenez; the influence of Stephane Mallarme and Paul Valery in the works of Jimenez, Jorge Guilleen, Pedro Salinas and Charles Riba; and the use of surrealist motifs in selected poems by Lorca, Cernuda, Alberti, Aleixandre, Foix, Rossello Porcel and Octavio Paz.