Avant-garde, in French, refers to the people or the experimental, innovative works in art, culture, politics, philosophy and literature. It represents an impact on the limits of what is currently accepted as the status quo especially in the cultural scope. This renewal, modern movements were first produced in Europe in the first decades of the 20th century, from which it extended to the rest of the continents, including <em>Latin America</em>.
To <em>Latin America</em>, the avant-garde movement arrived as the artistic answer to important social changes that they were facing by the time, changes defined by events like World War I (1914-1918), The Spanish Civil War (1939-1939), and World War II (1939-1945). This period is also considered as the Hispanic postmodernism. This avant-garde movement represented a breakdown with the rhetoric and harmonic tradition from modernism, and transformed the poetical language. The <em>Latin American </em>poets from this movement wanted to create a language in a world in which there were no cultural frontiers; with their necessity to express national cultures through their own traditions in order to emphasize in the Latin America's identity roots, and the proliferation of a social message.
By that time, the countries in Latin America, had an autonomy, liberty and democratization eagerness; it is important to note that in Latin America, this movement was artistic but at the same time it was politic. The immediate precedent were: The Porfiriato in Mexico (1876-1910); in Brazil, the rebirth of the oligarchy until the 1920s; in Chile, the frustration of the democratic project by president Balmaeda; and in other countries, a liberal- oligarchic settlements represented by progressive sectors. In other words, Latin America was looking for their autonomy and their identity, assuming with this avant-garde movement the conflicts of a continent, reacting with the social circumstances generated by capitalism.
