My first priority in this book is to shed new light on the poetry Rafael Alberti wrote in his avant-garde period, 1927–38. My second is to unravel the complexities that beset the issue of Surrealism in Spain and offer a pragmatic approach to its distinctive ethos (it being accepted here that a varietal difference between Surrealism in Spain and in France – its HQ – is inevitable for the simple reason that the two countries have two very different cultures). In practice my priorities are complementary, for it should be mutually enlightening to compare Alberti’s work with that of such radical avant-gardists as Salvador Dalí, Luis Buñuel, Federico García Lorca, Maruja Mallo, Gimémez Caballero and Vicente Aleixandre across the genres of painting, film, prose and poetry.

My approach is driven by a double conviction: that there is no more luminous star than Alberti in the galaxy of Spanish poets who began to shine in the 1920s, and that his work provides a unique touchstone for appreciating the ethos of Surrealism in Spain. The reasons for this latter claim are outlined in Chapter One, ‘The Crucified Mind’, which serves as an introduction by relating Alberti to Surrealism’s different phases. My own view, polemical as it may be, is that assessments of Surrealism in Spain have tended to be too narrow and too exclusively based on ideas found in Breton’s First Manifesto which, though important, do not constitute the whole picture. The fact is that Surrealism evolved, and so too, in surprisingly close step, does Alberti’s poetry. His disarming self-assessment, ‘Yo me defino como un poeta de mi tiempo’ [I see myself as a poet of my time], applies especially to his so-called ‘crisis’ volumes. From the personal anguish of Sobre los ángeles (1927–1928) [Concerning the Angels], to the increasingly metaphysical themes of Sermones y moradas (1928–1929) [Sermons and Dwelling Places], to the political turmoil of El poeta en la calle (1931–1935) [The Poet in the Street] which culminates in a moving poetic diary of the Spanish Civil War, De un momento a otro (poesía e historia) (1934–1938) [Any Minute Now (Poetry and History)], Alberti is undeniably a poet of rapid shifts of focus and strong experimental tendencies.