Poetry of Exile of Spain: Sentimental Chronicle of an Exile

Abstract

1939 is a fundamental date in the history of Spain: it is the beginning of a totalitarian regime. At the end of the Spanish Civil War, hundreds of thousands of Spanish people were forced to leave their homeland. Writers, philosophers, artists, scientists, and people from different cultural fields scattered around the world. The writers who were forced to leave their lands behind were members of three generations of intellectuals who led the literary and cultural life of the country since the end of the 19th century until 1936, the year the civil war commenced. In the beginning of the exile, the majority of the intellectuals dreamed of returning to their homeland they had left by obligation, but as time passed, their hopes were lost and the refugees recognized that the exile could be everlasting. However, the exile did not affect all in the same way. For some of them, it was the beginning of a new life, and for others, it meant putting up resistance. In the beginning, there was an inevitable nostalgia, melancholy, and the sorrow of uprooting in the works of republican exiles; however, as time passed, certain divergences were revealed between them. Consequently, the literature of the exile reflected common themes such as the memories of the abandoned lands, the desire for return, and the resistance but as well as the personal experiences of each one of them. This work aims to highlight the experience of the exiles through the poems composed during the exile.