Concept in Definition ABC

At the beginning of the 20th century there was a resurgence of poetry through a wide range of currents. Among them, it is worth highlighting the Generation of 27, modernism and avant-garde poetry in its different manifestations (surrealism, Futurism, Dadaism, Ultraism ...). In Latin America there was also a revolution in poetic creation and postumism it was one of the most original currents of that historical moment.

Beginnings of the movement and historical context

This literary phenomenon occurred exclusively in the Dominican Republic and began in 1921 with the Postumista Manifesto, a poetic proposal elaborated mainly by the philosopher Andrés Avelino. It should be noted that the term postumism was created by the poet Domingo Moreno Jimenez and this word was used because its author understood that the poetry of this current would only be understood in the future and, therefore, posthumously.

The poets who are part of this current direct their gaze towards the genuinely Dominican in a time when the great landowners and the Political forces approach the imperialist positions of the United States, while the popular classes live in conditions of exploitation and misery.

General features

The posthumous creators (the aforementioned Domingo Moreno and Andrés Avelino, but also Rafael Augusto Zorrilla, Vigil Díaz and others) exalt the signs of identity nationals and vindicate an autochthonous poetry that expresses the personality Dominican culture and, in a singular way, the experiences and language of the people.

Postumists distanced themselves from traditional poetry and classical versification and adopted an approach based on creative freedom. In his poetry a cultural distancing is transmitted with the schemes of the colonialism. The poetic world of postumism tries to express the essence of the Dominican spirit and the formal aspects take a back seat.

Reading postumista poems the reader encounters the Dominican landscape and reality: the tropical world in all its vigor, popular twists and expressions, religious traditions, the poverty in the streets and the desire for individual and collective freedom. The reading of a poem does not depend on the regularity and structure of its verses, since the posthumous poet wants to capture the deep rhythm of his thoughts.

Despite the originality of the movement, literary critics of the intellectual elite of the 1920s had a attitude of contempt for the Postumist poets (the movement was labeled by some as the cesspool of poetry). In recent years some scholars of the literature they have rescued postumist poets from oblivion.

Photo: Fotolia - demerzel21