In 1977 the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Vicente Aleixandre, a Spanish poet whose name and works were little known outside Hispanic literary circles. For the rest of the world, contemporary Spanish poetry was represented by other members of Aleixandre's generation, such as Federico García Lorca and Jorge Guillén. After the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) a majority of the best Spanish poets left the country to live in exile, and Spain became for many a land of intellectual backwardness and of no creative artistic powers. But as the Spanish political situation began to change and interest in the country increased, the poetry of Aleixandre became the most representative of the contemporary period in Spain. His voice bridged the gap left by the war; the younger generations saw in his work a connecting link with the older poets who had died or left the...