Los Contemporáneos can refer to a Mexican

Mexican people

Mexican people refers to all persons from Mexico, a multiethnic country in North America, and/or who identify with the Mexican cultural and/or national identity....

 modernist

Modernism

Modernism, in its broadest definition, is modern thought, character, or practice. More specifically, the term describes the modernist movement, its set of cultural tendencies and array of associated cultural movements, originally arising from wide-scale and far-reaching changes to Western society...

 group, active in the late twenties

1920s

File:1920s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Third Tipperary Brigade Flying Column No. 2 under Sean Hogan during the Irish Civil War; Prohibition agents destroying barrels of alcohol in accordance to the 18th amendment, which made alcoholic beverages illegal throughout the entire decade; In...

 and early thirties

1930s

File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...

, as well as to the literary magazine

Literary magazine

A literary magazine is a periodical devoted to literature in a broad sense. Literary magazines usually publish short stories, poetry and essays along with literary criticism, book reviews, biographical profiles of authors, interviews and letters...

 which served as the group's mouthpiece and artistic vehicle from 1928 to 1931. In a way, they were opposed to estridentismo

Stridentism

Stridentism was an artistic and multidisciplinary avant-garde movement, founded in Mexico City by Manuel Maples Arce at the end of 1921 but formally developed in Xalapa where all the founders moved after the University of Veracruz granted its support for the movement...

.
The group had its origins in friendships and literary collaborations that were formed among students attending Mexico City's

Mexico City

Mexico City is the Federal District , capital of Mexico and seat of the federal powers of the Mexican Union. It is a federal entity within Mexico which is not part of any one of the 31 Mexican states but belongs to the federation as a whole...

 elite National Preparatory School; that is where founding members José Gorostiza

José Gorostiza

' was a Mexican poet, educator, and diplomat. For his achievements in the poetic arts, he was made a member of the .-Biography: was born in the riverine city of , then known as , to and . His younger brother would also become an important artist. He moved to Mexico City to attend the National...

, Carlos Pellicer

Carlos Pellicer

Carlos Pellicer Cámara , born in Villahermosa, Tabasco, was part of the first wave of modernist Mexican poets and was heavily active in the promotion of Mexican art and literature...

, Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano

Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano

Bernardo Ortiz de Montellano was a modern Mexican poet, literary critic, editor, and teacher.Ortiz de Montellano visited the Escuela Nacional Preparatoria...

, Enrique González Rojo

Enrique González Rojo, Sr.

Enrique González Rojo was a Mexican writer.- Biography :González Martínez was the son of the poet Enrique González Martínez and his wife Luisa Rojo. He had two siblings...

, and Jaime Torres Bodet

Jaime Torres Bodet

Jaime Torres Bodet was a prominent Mexican politician and writer who served in the executive cabinet of three Presidents of Mexico....

 met for the first time. This core group would all go on to attend together the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, specifically its Faculty

Faculty (university)

A faculty is a division within a university comprising one subject area, or a number of related subject areas...

 of Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence

Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...

, where they would come under the influence of professors Antonio Caso and Enrique González Martínez

Enrique González Martínez

Enrique González Martínez was a Mexican poet, diplomat, surgeon and obstetrician. His poetry is considered to be primarily Modernist in nature, with elements of French symbolism....

, both of whom were associated with the literary society

Literary society

A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of literature or a specific writer. Modern literary societies typically promote research about their chosen author or genre, publish newsletters, and hold...

 Ateneo de México. Following this a new generationally oriented and constituted society named the Nuevo Ateneo de la Juventud was formed in 1918. As a literary generation, the group was inheritor to modernismo

Modernismo

Modernismo is Spanish for modernism, however the term Modernism also indicates a more specific art movement:* Modernismo refers to a Spanish-American literary movement, best exemplified by Rubén Darío...

, the work of Ramón López Velarde

Ramón López Velarde

Ramón López Velarde was aMexican poet. His work is generally considered to be postmodern, but is unique for its subject matter. He achieved great fame in his native land, to the point of being considered Mexico's national poet....

, and the tradition of the European avant garde. It was during this time that work by Los Contemporáneos began appearing in magazines and student periodicals such as Pegaso (1917) and San-Ev-Ank (1918). In 1921 Salvador Novo

Salvador Novo

Salvador Novo López was a Mexican writer, poet, playwright, translator, television presenter, entrepreneur, and the official chronicler of Mexico City, his birthplace and home. As a noted intellectual, he influenced popular perceptions of politics, media, the arts, and Mexican society in general...

 and Xavier Villaurrutia

Xavier Villaurrutia

Xavier Villaurrutia y González was a Mexican poet and playwright, whose most famous works are the short theatrical dramas, called Autos profanos, compiled in the work Poesía y teatro completos published in 1953....

 joined the group; Jorge Cuesta

Jorge Cuesta

Jorge Mateo Cuesta Porte-Petit was a Mexican chemist, writer and editor.- Biography :...

 and Gilberto Owen

Gilberto Owen

Gilberto Owen Estrada was a Mexican poet and diplomat.- Biography :Officially registered as Gilberto Estrada, son of Margarita Estrada from Michoacán, Gilberto Owen was born in Rosario, Sinaloa...

 would later enter its orbit as well. Los Contemporáneos would benefit from government support during the period when José Vasconcelos

José Vasconcelos

José Vasconcelos Calderón was a Mexican writer, philosopher and politician. He is one of the most influential and controversial personalities in the development of modern Mexico. His philosophy of "indigenismo" affected all aspects of Mexican sociocultural, political, and economic...

 was Secretary of Public Education (1920–24). Antonieta Rivas Mercado was also a member, as well as their patron.
Members of the group began writing for and collaborating in magazines and other literary venues. They also started their own publications, the first of which, México Moderno, was described as an "art and literature review

Review

A review is an evaluation of a publication, a product or a service, such as a movie , video game, musical composition , book ; a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show...

," it ran from 1920-23. La Falange

Falange

The Spanish Phalanx of the Assemblies of the National Syndicalist Offensive , known simply as the Falange, is the name assigned to several political movements and parties dating from the 1930s, most particularly the original fascist movement in Spain. The word means phalanx formation in Spanish....

(Dec. 1922-Feb. 1923), labeled a "review of Latin culture

Latin American culture

Latin American culture is the formal or informal expression of the peoples of Latin America, and includes both high culture and popular culture as well as religion and other customary practices....

," and Ulises (May 1927-Feb. 1928; see also Teatro Ulises

Teatro Ulises

The Teatro Ulises was an experimental theater, located in the calle de Mesones 42 of Mexico City, that was established around 1927/1928 by Antonieta Rivas Mercado, daughter of the architect Antonio Rivas Mercado, and further members of the group Los Contemporáneos...

), billed as a source of "curiosity and criticism

Literary criticism

Literary criticism is the study, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals...

," were two other short-lived, though influential, literary journals founded and directed by Contemporáneos.

In 1928 Torres Bodet inaugurated the groups longest-lived editorial endeavor, the magazine Contemporáneos. From June of that year until December 1931, the magazine would publish, along with representative work by its founding members and allies, pieces by older more established Mexican, Latin American, and Spanish

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

 writers, as well as translation

Translation

Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...

s of favored American

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

 and Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

an authors. The rich and varied content of the publication was complemented by expensive details such as fine magazine paper and photographs and illustrations (made possible by continued government subventions

Subsidy

A subsidy is an assistance paid to a business or economic sector. Most subsidies are made by the government to producers or distributors in an industry to prevent the decline of that industry or an increase in the prices of its products or simply to encourage it to hire more labor A subsidy (also...

).

In 1928 Jorge Cuesta would also publish, under the aegis

Aegis

An aegis is a large collar or cape worn in ancient times to display the protection provided by a high religious authority or the holder of a protective shield signifying the same, such as a bag-like garment that contained a shield. Sometimes the garment and the shield are merged, with a small...

 of the Contemporáneos press, a poetic

Poetry

Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...

 anthology

Anthology

An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...

 titled Antología de la poesía mexicana moderna, which would give rise to heated polemic

Polemic

A polemic is a variety of arguments or controversies made against one opinion, doctrine, or person. Other variations of argument are debate and discussion...

s because of what were perceived, in certain literary and intellectual quarters, as glaring editorial omissions. Needless to say, much of the anthology's pages were taken up by the poetic output of Contemporáneos.

Los Contemporáneos: tradition and innovation

The group's central ideological

Ideology

An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...

 position can be described as one of "contemporary [hence the name] cultural universalism

Universality (philosophy)

In philosophy, universalism is a doctrine or school claiming universal facts can be discovered and is therefore understood as being in opposition to relativism. In certain religions, universality is the quality ascribed to an entity whose existence is consistent throughout the universe...

": they were aware of the emergence of an unprecedented universality of cultural expression and innovation (brought about by capitalism's

Capitalism

Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...

 advance and accelerating technological progress), which they sought to not simply participate in, but, through their own particular vantage point as Mexican artists, contribute to as well. As individuals and as a group they would go on to expand the horizons of Mexican poetry.

The Contemporáneos always expressed great appreciation for La Nouvelle Revue Française

Nouvelle Revue Française

La Nouvelle Revue Française is a literary magazine founded in 1909 by a group of intellectuals, including André Gide, Jacques Copeau, and Jean Schlumberger...

 and its coterie of writers. They were also greatly attentive to the evolution of surrealism

Surrealism

Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....

, and members of the group, while in Europe, made contact with leaders of the movement, including André Breton

André Breton

André Breton was a French writer and poet. He is known best as the founder of Surrealism. His writings include the first Surrealist Manifesto of 1924, in which he defined surrealism as "pure psychic automatism"....

, author of the Surrealist Manifesto

Surrealist Manifesto

Two Surrealist Manifestos were issued by the Surrealist movement, in 1924 and 1929. The first was written by André Breton, the second was supervised by him. Breton drafted a third Surrealist manifesto which was never issued.-First manifesto:...

. The most important literary models and precursors of the Contemporáneos were: Guillaume Apollinaire

Guillaume Apollinaire

Wilhelm Albert Włodzimierz Apolinary Kostrowicki, known as Guillaume Apollinaire was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist, and art critic born in Italy to a Polish mother....

, Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...

, André Gide

André Gide

André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...

, Marcel Proust

Marcel Proust

Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...

, T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot

Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...

 and Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1956. One of Jiménez's most important contributions to modern poetry was his advocacy of the French concept of "pure poetry."-Biography:Jiménez was born in Moguer, near Huelva, in...

; with Gide and Proust being paramount.

Critical assessment

The Contemporáneos produced work which was characterized by the extensive, sometimes essentializing, use of metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

, and complex image

Image

An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...

ry, which served to express experimental disjointments in narrative

Narrative

A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...

 time and space meant to convey or reinforce particular philosophical or scientific concepts or concerns. At times, the Contemporáneos were accused of literary effetism and elitism

Elitism

Elitism is the belief or attitude that some individuals, who form an elite — a select group of people with intellect, wealth, specialized training or experience, or other distinctive attributes — are those whose views on a matter are to be taken the most seriously or carry the most...

, especially when compared to groups more politically vocal and nationalist

Nationalism

Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...

, such as the estridentistas

Stridentism

Stridentism was an artistic and multidisciplinary avant-garde movement, founded in Mexico City by Manuel Maples Arce at the end of 1921 but formally developed in Xalapa where all the founders moved after the University of Veracruz granted its support for the movement...

, and of giving excessive preference to the airy and philosophical over the robust, the manly, and the mundane.

External links

• (English) The Contemporaneos
• (Spanish) http://www.lamaquinadeltiempo.com/elizondo/contempo.htmLos "Contemporáneos" y sus Contemporáneos por Salvador Elizondo
  Salvador Elizondo
  Salvador Elizondo Alcalde was a Mexican writer of the 60s Generation of Mexican literature.Regarded as one of the creators of the most influential cult noirè, experimental, intelligent style literature in Latin America, he wrote as a novelist, poet, critic, playwright, and journalist...
  
  ]
• (Spanish) http://google.com/search?q=cache:5ahrrDe4EfkJ:www.letraslibres.com/pdf.php%3Fid%3D1881+%22los+contemporáneos%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=19&gl=usLos Contemporáneos Ayer de Guillermo Sheridan
  Guillermo Sheridan
  Guillermo Sheridan is a Mexican scholar and writer born in Mexico City. As a scholar, most of his writing deals with the history of Mexican modern poetry in books like Los Contemporáneos ayer , Un corazón adicto , México en 1932 , Poeta con Paisaje Guillermo Sheridan (August 27, 1950) is a Mexican...
  
  ]
• (Spanish) http://www.cvc-cervantes.es/el_rinconete/anteriores/agosto_05/09082005_01.htmLos Contemporáneos at the Centro Virtual Cervantes
  Instituto Cervantes
  The Cervantes Institute is a worldwide non-profit organization created by the Spanish government in 1991. It is named after Miguel de Cervantes , the author of Don Quixote and perhaps the most important figure in the history of Spanish literature...
  
  ]