The Ultraist movement () was a

literary Literature is any collection of Writing, 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 ...

movement Movement may refer to: Common uses * Movement (clockwork), the internal mechanism of a timepiece * Motion, commonly referred to as movement Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * "Movement" (short story), a short story by Nancy Fu ...

born in Spain in 1918, with the declared intention of opposing Modernismo, which had dominated

Spanish poetry This article concerns poetry in Spain. Medieval Spain The Medieval period covers 400 years of different poetry texts and can be broken up into five categories. Primitive lyrics Since the findings of the Kharjas, which are mainly two, three, o ...

since the end of the 19th century. The movement was launched in the tertulias of Madrid's ''Café Colonial'', presided by

Rafael Cansinos Assens Rafael may refer to: * Rafael (given name) or Raphael, a name of Hebrew origin * Rafael, California * Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, Israeli manufacturer of weapons and military technology * Hurricane Rafael, a 2012 hurricane Fiction * ''R ...

. The Ultraist core was formed, among others, by Guillermo de Torre,

Juan Larrea Juan Larrea may refer to: *Juan Larrea (poet) (1895–1980), Spanish poet *Juan Larrea (politician) (1782–1847), Argentine politician * Juan Larrea (fencer) (born 1935), Argentine fencer * Juan Larrea (footballer) (born 1993), Argentine footballe ...

, Gerardo Diego and the Argentine Jorge Luis Borges, who lived in Madrid at the time. In the trend of Russian and Italian

futurism Futurism ( it, Futurismo, link=no) was an artistic and social movement that originated in Italy, and to a lesser extent in other countries, in the early 20th century. It emphasized dynamism, speed, technology, youth, violence, and objects such ...

, Dadaism and French

surrealism Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...

, 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 Modernismo. Ultraist poetry is characterized by evocative imagery, references to the modern world and new technologies, elimination of

rhyme A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (usually, the exact same phonemes) in the final stressed syllables and any following syllables of two or more words. Most often, this kind of perfect rhyming is consciously used for a musical or aesthetic ...

, and creative graphic treatment of the layout of poetry in print, in an attempt to fuse the

plastic arts Plastic arts are art forms which involve physical manipulation of a plastic medium by molding or modeling such as sculpture or ceramics. Less often the term may be used broadly for all the visual arts (such as painting, sculpture, film and pho ...

and poetry. Ultraism was influenced in part by Symbolism and by the

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. In a manifesto published by ''Nosotros'' magazine ( Buenos Aires, 1922), Borges summarized Ultraist goals thus: # Reduction of the lyric element to its primordial element, metaphor # 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 movements in its elimination of sentimentalism. Ultraism was akin to the of the Chilean poet Vicente Huidobro, 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