This critical study of the group of remarkably talented poets who flourished in Spain between the First World War and the Spanish Civil War includes copious quotations accompanied by English prose translations. Mr Morris treats his poets as a group, showing how they shared certain themes and attitudes. He begins with a general study of the generation as a whole and then examines the use of tradition; the zest and levity of the Jazz Age; the exaltation of life as a shared attitude; then its converse; the escape from life; and finally the expression in complex imagery of personal tensions and disturbances. These are often 'difficult' poets, but become less so when they are sympathetically examined in this way and in relation to earlier literary traditions. Mr Morris enables the reader to take bearings and establish relationships which are enhanced by reproductions of photographs of the poets.

Although studies of Modernism have focused largely on European nations, Spain has been conspicuously neglected. As Carol A. Hess argues in this compelling book, such neglect is wholly undeserved. Through composer Manuel de Falla (1876-1946), Hess explores the advent of Modernism in Spain in relation to political and cultural tensions prior to the Spanish Civil War. The result is a fresh view of the musical life of Spain that departs from traditional approaches to the subject and reveals an open and constantly evolving aesthetic climate.

Writer, critic, and cultural activist José Bergamín (1895-1983) was unjustly relegated to the sidelines of contemporary Spanish intellectual life for reasons that have more to do with his political dissidence and long periods of exile than with the interest and importance of his written work. This book represents the first attempt to come to terms with that work. Professor Dennis's study focuses on the period 1920-1936, the so-called silver age of Spanish literature, during which Bergamín rose to prominence alongside a group of superlatively gifted writers and friends, among them Frederico Garcia Lorca, Rafael Alberti, Jorge Guillén, and Pedro Salinas. It sets out to explain the nature of the relationship Bergamín had as a critic and prose writer with the major poets of the 1920s and 1930s, and at the same time systematically examines the singularity of his own work as an aphorist, essayist, and dramatist. Professor Dennis also devotes attention to explaining the sense of Bergamín's initiative in founding the important journal Cruz y Raya (1933-1936) and the role this publication played, both culturally and politically, during the troubled years of the Second Republic. This book not only fills a notable gap in our understanding of pre--Civil War literary and intellectual life in Spain, but also lays the foundation for all future research into the work of this fascinating and enigmatic writer.

Spanish Poetry of the Grupo Poético de 1927 is an anthology of poems by members of Grupo Poético de 1927, an association of poets who sought to detach poetry from non-poetic elements such as narrative, anecdote, political or social preoccupations, or didacticism. Seven poets are represented: Pedro Salinas, Jorge Guillén, Gerardo Diego, Federico García Lorca, Vicente Aleixandre, Rafael Alberti, and Luis Cernuda. This text consists of eight chapters and begins with an introduction to changing trends in poetry in Spain between 1918 and the present. Biographical notes are included to show the effect (or lack of effect) of these movements on the individual poets. Movements such as ultraismo and maestria are discussed, along with the tercentenary of the death of Spanish poet Luis de Góngora, the crisis suffered by the Grupo, and late developments in the poets of the Grupo. The chapters that follow focus on the works of the Grupo poets. This book is written specifically for sixth-formers and undergraduates, as well as anyone with an interest in Spanish poetry.

A study of the work of the Spanish poet Luis Cernuda (1902-1963). The works of the twentieth-century Spanish poet Luis Cernuda (1902-1963) are characterised by their fragmentary and disunified nature, with a wide range of complexities and contradictions. Concentrating on the well-known La realidad y el deseo, Dr McKinlay considers the poems from the perspective of the widespread loss of faith in God, exploring the tension between Cernuda's perception of chaos and desire for order, which co-exist in dialectical opposition. NEIL C. MCKINLAY is college lecturer in Spanish at New College, Oxford.

The concept of poesie critique - poetry that possesses both a poetic and a critical function - has an extensive history in modern literature. Written in response to another work of art, be it a painting, a film, a poem, or a piece of music, the critical poem comments on the latter in various ways but refuses to abandon its poetic mission. Marvelous Encounters examines surrealist poets writing in French, Spanish, and Catalan who experimented with this intriguing genre. The first three chapters are concerned with the French surrealists, who began to cultivate critical poetry toward the end of World War I. Chapter 2 considers how Louis Aragon and Philippe Soupault appropriated the critical poem, as they reviewed books of poetry and films starring Charlie Chaplin. Chapter 3, which examines how Benjamin Peret and Paul Eluard conceived of critical poetry, analyzes their response to poems by Tristan Tzara and paintings by Giorgio de Chirico and Joan Miro. Chapter 4 is devoted entirely to Andre Breton.