In the field of literature, modernism is a poetic movement whose highest representative was the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío. His style and language influenced other poetic currents. One of them was the beheaded Generation, made up of a small group of young Ecuadorian poets who developed their work around 1920.
The most representative authors are Medardo Ángel Silva, Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño, Arturo Borja and Humberto Fierro.
The premature death of all of them made them popularly known as the Headless Generation.
Common features in his poetic production
The four poets that make up this generation were inspired by two sources: the new language of Rubén Darío and the symbolism and Parnassianism of the French poets Charles Baudelaire, Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine. On the other hand, all of them were friends and maintained an intense correspondence relationship.
The modernism of the Ecuadorian poets stands out for the following aspects:
1) a longing for freedom in literary creation,
2) a deep admiration for nature,
3) the exaltation of beauty and
4) the use of an exotic language, full of rhythm and musicality.
Tragic lives
Medardo Ángel Silva was born into a humble family in the city of Guayaquil in 1898. He did not finish his studies and started working in a printing company. At the age of 17 he had already published some poems in literary magazines and in the newspaper El Telégrafo. In 1919 he decided to end his life by shooting himself in the temple in front of his girlfriend when he had just turned 21 years old.
Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño was born in Guayaquil in 1898. His family was well placed economically and for this reason he was able to dedicate himself to the bohemian life of the style of the Parisian poets of the time. As a result of a neurosis, he ended up taking morphine and hallucinogenic drugs to find some peace of mind. In 1927, sad and sick, he died at the age of 38
Arturo Borja (1892-1912) came from a very wealthy Quito family. At 15 he traveled to Paris to treat a serious vision problem and there he was imbued with the spirit of the "Damned Poets" such as Baudelaire or Verlaine. At 20 he died of a morphine overdose, a few weeks after being married.
Humberto Fierro was born in the city of Quito. He was a poet of great sensitivity, lonely and very introverted. His working life was spent in an office of the Public Ministry. At the age of 43 he died a natural death and was the last poet of the beheaded Generation.
