The Ultraist movement () was a

literary Literature is any collection of written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially prose fiction, drama, and poetry. In recent centuries, the definition has expanded to include ...

movement born in

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

in 1918, with the declared intention of opposing

Modernismo ''Modernismo'' is a literary movement that took place primarily during the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth-century in the Spanish-speaking world, best exemplified by Rubén Darío who is also known as the father of ''Modernismo''. The ter ...

, which had dominated Spanish poetry since the end of the 19th century. The movement was launched in the

tertulia A tertulia (, ; pt, tertúlia ; ca, tertúlia ) is a social gathering with literary or artistic overtones, especially in Iberian Peninsula, Iberia or in Spanish America. Tertulia also means an informal meeting of people to talk about current affa ...

s of

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

's ''Café Colonial'', presided by Rafael Cansinos Assens. The Ultraist core was formed, among others, by

Guillermo de Torre Guillermo de Torre (Madrid, 1900 – Buenos Aires, 14 January 1971) was a Spanish essayist, poet and literary critic, a Dadaist and member of the Generation of '27. He is also notable as the brother-in-law of the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borge ...

, Juan Larrea,

Gerardo Diego Gerardo Diego Cendoya (October 3, 1896 – July 8, 1987) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. Diego taught language and literature at institutes of learning in Soria, Gijón, Santander and Madrid. He also acted as litera ...

and the Argentine

Jorge Luis Borges Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo (; ; 24 August 1899 – 14 June 1986) was an Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, as well as a key figure in Spanish-language and international literature. His best-known b ...

, who lived in Madrid at the time. In the trend of Russian and Italian futurism,

Dada Dada () or Dadaism was an art movement of the European avant-garde in the early 20th century, with early centres in Zürich, Switzerland, at the Cabaret Voltaire (in 1916). New York Dada began c. 1915, and after 1920 Dada flourished in Pari ...

ism and French surrealism, the Ultraist movement, which ended in 1922 with the cessation of the journal ''Ultra'' (though some authors, such as Borges, continued writing in the Ultraist style for nearly a decade afterwards), proposed an aesthetic change, less ambitious than that of surrealism, trying to extend to all arts and to daily life itself. The Ultraists departed completely from the mannerisms and opulence of

. Ultraist poetry is characterized by evocative imagery, references to the modern world and new technologies, elimination of rhyme, and creative graphic treatment of the layout of poetry in print, in an attempt to fuse the plastic arts and poetry. Ultraism was influenced in part by

Symbolism Symbolism or symbolist may refer to: Arts * Symbolism (arts), a 19th-century movement rejecting Realism ** Symbolist movement in Romania, symbolist literature and visual arts in Romania during the late 19th and early 20th centuries ** Russian sym ...

and by the Parnassians. In a manifesto published by ''Nosotros'' magazine (

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

, 1922), Borges summarized Ultraist goals thus: # Reduction of the lyric element to its primordial element,

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

# Deletion of useless middle sentences, linking particles and adjectives. # Avoidance of ornamental artifacts, confessionalism, circumstantiation, preaching and farfetched nebulosity. # Synthesis of two or more images into one, thus widening its suggestiveness. The expression "ornamental artifacts" was clearly a reference to Rubén Darío's Modernismo, which the Ultraists considered over-ornamented and lacking in substance. The Ultraist movement agreed with other

avant-garde The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...

movements in its elimination of sentimentalism. Ultraism was akin to the of the Chilean poet

Vicente Huidobro Vicente García-Huidobro Fernández (; January 10, 1893 – January 2, 1948) was a Chilean poet born to an aristocratic family. He promoted the avant-garde literary movement in Chile and was the creator and greatest exponent of the literary m ...

, who met with the Ultraists in their tertulias. Huidobro proposed that a poem should always be a new object, distinct from the rest, which must be created "like nature creates a tree"—a position that implied freedom of the poem from reality, including the inner reality of the author.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Ultraist Movement Spanish literary movements