Bodies in motion

spanish vanguard poetry, mass culture, and gender dynamics

Bellver, Catherine Gullo

Bellver (Spanish, University of Nevada, Las Vegas) uses the metaphor of the moving body, human or mechanical, for the work of Spanish Vanguard poetry composed between the wars. The first section, after setting the movement in its historical context, is the image of dance. Spanish traditional dances merge into jazz as poets use traditional themes when writing about the new Anglo and North American cultural influences. In this part she introduces the sub theme of gender differences in form and expression among the poets. Women writing about dance see the form and themselves differently from male writers. This is continued in the next section, on sport, where male poets perceive female athletes as objects of desire, while women write them as examples of liberation. The writing on the movement of machines also follows gender stereotypes, with men glorifying the machine in order to master it while most women see machines as tools that would allow them more freedom outside the drudgery of maintaining a home. Poets include, Garc