El ala del sur de Pedro Garfias: Libro clave de la generacion del 27

Though still not fully recognized, Pedro Garfias was one of the first avant-garde poets of Spain, since he subscribed to the Ultraist Manifesto of 1918. El ala del sur, his first book of poems, was written between 1918 and 1926, a period considered by the critics as the first stage of the Spanish Peninsular avant-garde generation. This book by Garfias needed to be studied in order to better assess the transition from symbolism to the avant-garde movement in Spanish poetry, and to establish the importance of Pedro Garfias within his own generation. Basing my study on Peter Burger\u27s Theorie der Avantgarde, the traditional elements encountered in El ala del sur show that they can be used and transformed into elements of the avant-garde period. The mixture of traditional elements and other new techniques borrowed from the European avant-garde movements, result, in this book of Garfias, in a new conception of the idea of unity. For example the metaphorical connections between earthly and cosmic elements, characteristics of creationism, are used as a new technique to relate love, nature, and the universe. The traditional meaning of these themes is inverted into a relatively optimistic vision of life, based on love, which in turn is experienced as instants of pleasure. Conventional time, as a succession of moments, is rejected by Garfias, giving preference to the instant. Some elements, borrowed from futurism, such as a dynamic perception of objects, show illogical poetic realities, while other important aspects of futurism are rejected. For example the modern city is viewed by Garfias as a negative place. These new conceptions of the city and love will have a profound effect in the poets of the Generation of 1927. El ala del sur, therefore presents a mixture of poetic techniques taken from the new isms, as well as from the poetic tradition, which clearly show the evolution of Spanish poetry from symbolism to the avant-garde poetry of Spain