The youngest member of the so-called Generation of 1927, Manuel Altolaguirre, was a man whose life was entirely inspired by and devoted to poetry. He was not only a poet but also an editor, publisher, and printer of poetry. In addition, he wrote drama and, in his later years, film scripts that were largely colored by poetry; his last film, El cantar de los cantares (The Song of Songs, 1959), was even subtitled "cinepoema" (film-poem).

The "Brilliant Pleiad"--another name for the 1927 generation--included Federico García Lorca, Vicente Aleixandre, Pedro Salinas, Emilio Prados, Jorge Guillén, Rafael Alberti, and Luis Cernuda. These poets were more friends than anything else, since they lacked a common cause or rallying point: they did not rebel against anything in particular, be it literary taste, or social order; nor did they create any new revolutionary movement in literature.

It is true that these...