BEHEADED GENERATION: HISTORY, REPRESENTATIVES AND THEIR WORKS - LITERATURE - 2025

The decapitated generation was the name given to a group of poets considered the fathers of the Ecuadorian modernist movement. The reason for such a gloomy name is because all these writers, at an early age, ended their lives by committing suicide.

This generation was never conscious of being part of a group or of being strongholds or raising any movement. If there was something that united them, it was the lyrics, the melancholy, a deep sadness and a desire to leave soon, without anyone calling them.

The men who made up the beheaded generation were Humberto Fierro and Arturo Borja from Quito; and the Guayaquil residents Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño and Medardo Ángel Silva. As part of the ironies of life, the group's christening was years after their deaths.

It was up to the writer Raúl Andrade to assign the name that set the tone and immortalized them beyond their lyrics. Andrade did it by means of an essay, which he called the Altarpiece of a Beheaded Generation.

History

What was happening in Ecuador during the time when the beheaded generation was exercising its poetic work were events of great social, cultural and economic weight.

The natives began to regain their rights, secular education began to take hold, freedom of worship prevailed. Divorce was also allowed, women were given the right to vote, and the death penalty was abolished. All of these events occurred with very little time between them.

So they were not simple times. The end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century represented years of momentous changes for Ecuador.

All social strata were affected directly or indirectly in the different areas of their life. The beheaded poets and their lyrics did not escape this affectation.

Influences of the beheaded generation

As the main influence, the bastion of these men of letters, we find the great poet Rubén Darío. The Nicaraguan, who was considered the father of Latin American literary modernism, was one of the brands that lit the flame of letters in the hearts of these four men.

In addition to the important Spanish-American influence, European influence was not absent. It was common for these men in their gatherings to recite the famous “cursed poets: Victor Hugo, Arthur Rimbaud, Charles Baudelaire and Paul Verlaine. The French court of poetry was of special importance to them.

Two important details that greatly influenced the lives of these men were the lack of love and the abuse of opium.

This intense mixing caused deep literate pits in which the letters emerged one after another, giving rise to his poetry. When reading to them, it is possible to feel that heavy aura of reluctance, of perennial sadness.

Representatives and their works

Medardo Angel Silva

He was originally from Guayaquil. He was born in 1898, on June 8. His life was marked by poverty; This generated its own feeling of rejection and shame, despite having an immense talent for letters.

Due to financial difficulties, he had to abandon his studies at the Vicente Rocafuerte School. That did not prevent him from continuing to write and his poetry, at such an early age, from being recognized nationally and internationally.

To help himself and collaborate with the family, he went to work in a printing company. Working there made it easier for him in 1918 to publish his first and only book of poems: The Tree of Good and Evil.

A year after publishing his book, the poet made the bloody decision to end his life in front of his beloved. According to what they say, it was an unrequited love. His poetry is marked by that melancholic air and with a wisdom that did not correspond to his age.

Ernesto Noboa and Caamaño

He was originally from Guayaquil. He was born in 1891 and had a comfortable position from the cradle. As a child he read the cursed poets and developed delicate poetry, never before seen in Ecuador.

It was common to see him on bohemian nights, having consumed opium, reciting his own poems and those of the greats of Europe and America.

He had an overflowing sensitivity that was elevated after his trip to the Old Continent to meet a crucial part of the roots of his lyrics.

His life was not easy due to the fact that he was wealthy, as many believe. He suffered from episodes of neurosis that made him take morphine to calm himself.

He published his book Romanza de las horas in 1922. For this work he received high praise, but the recognition was not enough and the fate of the beheaded followed five years later.

In 1927 he committed suicide, leaving an immeasurable literary legacy to Latin American modernism and Ecuadorian poetry.

Arturo Borja

Originally from Quito, he was born in 1892. He also had a wealthy position, of royal descent. He was one of the youngest to say goodbye to die.

His work is not very extensive, but it has a considerable literary weight; in fact, he was the first of the beheaded to show clear modernist features in his lyrics.

With marked depressive tendencies in his poems and in his life itself, he was also inspired by the cursed poets, whom he read and followed. He traveled to Europe with his father due to health problems in one eye; there he had contact with French letters.

At the young age of 20, he married and later committed suicide with a morphine overdose. After her death, her collection of poems La fluuta de onix and six more poems were formally published.

Humberto Fierro

He is originally from Quito. He was born in 1890, into an Ecuadorian aristocratic family. He had contact with poetry thanks to the books in the family library; there he was captivated by the letters for the rest of his life.

Although he was highly influenced by the French Symbolist and Parnassian poets, whom he read without restraint, his poetry was pure and plain in language.

He made a great friendship with Arturo Borja and it was he who convinced him to publish his first book. In 1929, and after Borja's insistence, he published El luúd del valle.

That work was his most significant achievement. Death received him 10 years after the publication of his book; after his death his other book was published: Velada palatina.

There are still questions about whether it was an accident or suicide; The truth is that the last of those beheaded said goodbye in 1939. With him went the last breath of those who, without trying to be much, changed the literary history of a country.

Indelible literary footprint

There are subtle threads that unite us, threads that we do not feel but that hold us to events and things. The beheaded poets had their lives intertwined with two common cards: tragedy and transcendence.

The decapitated generation came to inject their poetic life into Ecuador in verses of true feeling. When no one was betting anything on Latin American poetry, these men gave themselves fully to be present with their lyrics.

References

1. Beheaded generation. (S. f.) (N / a): Wikipedia. Retrieved from: es.wikipedia.org.
2. Silver, EA (2010). The Headless Generation. (n / a): Bunk you. Rescued from: jesuden.blogspot.com.
3. 3. Carlarotta, A. (2015). Modernism in Ecuador and the «decapitated generation». Spain: Dialnet. Rescued from: dialnet.unirioja.es.
4. 4. Biography of Humberto Fierro -Summary of the life of the poet from Quito. (S. f). (n / a): Forosecuador. Rescued from: forosecuador.ec.
5. Ovejero, J. (2013). The beheaded generation. Mexico: ElPaís. Rescued from: blogs.elpais.com.