Following World War I, Spain underwent an intense flowering of art, literature, and culture—personified by a group of avant-garde poets known as the Generation of ’27. This program profiles key members of the Generation, guiding viewers through their influences, genres, styles, and often chaotic personal lives. Rarely seen archival footage and images accompany detailed interviews with literary scholars and surviving family members to create a sweeping portrait of this unique brotherhood of the word. In total, the set’s 11 segments—each devoted to one poet—feature over 2 hours of video. A bonus segment examines the influence that contemporary cinema had on Spanish writers striving to establish new genres of expression.

The featured poets are:

• Rafael Alberti, whose style ranged from playful to ominous and who spent 23 years exiled in Argentina

• Federico García Lorca, one of Spain’s greatest poets and dramatists, who was murdered by Spanish fascists in 1936

• Jorge Guillen, an adherent of “pure poetry” who established a widespread literary reputation late in life

• Manuel Altolaguirre, admired as a poet but also lauded for his work as an editor, publisher, and printer

• Emilio Prados, co-founder with Altolaguirre of the magazine Litoral, a highly influential publication in Spain during the 1920s

• Ramón Gómez de la Serna, a writer and dramatist who influenced filmmaker Luis Buñuel and who pioneered a short form of poetry called the greguería

• Vincent Aleixandre, whose work encompassed surrealism, a love of nature, and themes of human fellowship

• Luis Cernuda, an admirer of English poetry whose own writing, far ahead of its time, dealt openly with his homosexuality

• José Maria Hinojosa, perhaps the only right-wing member of the Generation of ’27, assassinated by supporters of the Republic in 1936

• Pedro Salinas, a teacher and translator whose passions included not only literature but also law and philosophy

• A bonus segment, The Light and the Word, shows how this gifted generation learned much from the grammar of film—which, for them, was “poetry in images.”

Contains brief nudity. A Films for the Humanities & Sciences Production. (Spanish with optional English subtitles, 2 parts, 63 minutes and 52 minutes)