Spanish Literature

Abstract

Modern Spanish literature is usually divided into four distinct periods: the Generation of ’98, consisting of writers born between about 1864 and 1880; the Generation of ’27 (because that year marked the third centenary of the seventeenth-century poet Góngora), consisting of writers born between 1880 and about 1900; the Generation of 1936, or of the Republic; and post-Civil-War writers — in poetry, the Generations of 1936 and 1950. Overall, this arbitrary division is more misleading than helpful: too many writers overlap the divisions or transcend them. But the first two divisions are convenient so long as one does not become involved in sterile polemics about them.