1790–1820) was characterized by the use of classic forms similar to those of ancient Greece, with equaled invocations of Greco-Latin gods but with a singular prominence given to nature with the clear intention of distancing itself from Europe.
Romanticism matured in Cuba due to one figure with continental status whose poetic works broke with Spanish-language tradition (including that of classical Greece), dominated then by varying levels of neoclassicism.
José María Heredia was born in Santiago de Cuba in 1803 and died in Toluca, Mexico in 1839, and besides being the first great Romantic poet and Cuban exile, he was an essayist and dramaturge.
The next milestone of Cuban poetry came with the rise of two poets: Juan Clemente Zenea (1832–1871) and Luisa Pérez de Zambrana (1837–1922), who, like Merecedes Matamoros, achieved high literary qualities in their works.
"How would the lyrical exoticism of Regino Pedroso, the symbolist intimacy of Dulce María Loynaz, the poetic sentimentality of Eugenio Florit, the refined and solitary purism of Mariano Brull [...] or the neo-Romanticism of Emilio Ballagas and the part-romantic, part-modernist vein in some of Nicolás Guillén’s poetry be understood without an antecedent like Casal?
In 1940, the magazine Revista Orígenes, which concentrated on both Cuban and universal topics, was launched by a group led by Lezama Lima (1910–1976) that included Ángel Gaztelu, Gastón Baquero, Octavio Smith, Cintio Vitier, Fina García Marruz and Eliseo Diego.
Other distinguished poets of this generation were Lorenzo García Vega, Samuel Feijóo, Mary Stanley Low and Félix Pita Rodríguez, but Lezama Lima was by far the central figure of Cuban poetry by mid-century.
Dense metaphors, complex syntax and conceptual obscurity define the Baroque poetic environment, which consisted in a struggle to reach a vision through which life would not continue seeming like "a yawning succession, a silent tear".
However, it is important to mention first the absurd and existential tone of Virgilio Piñera, the Creole sense conveyed by Eliseo Diego and Fina García Murruz, the late but effective outcome of José Zacarías Tallet's book La semilla estéril (1951), the dialogue with the common man in the second part of "Faz" by Samuel Feijóo, the intertextuality reached by Nicolás Guillén in "Elegía a Jesús Menéndez", the aforementioned conversational emphasis of Florit in "Asonante final" and other poems (1955), and finally the then-closed intimacy of Dulce María Loynaz with her distinctive work "Últimos días de una casa" (1958).
Notable women poets of this era included Emilia Bernal, Dulce María Loynaz, Carilda Oliver Labra, Rafaela Chacón Nardi, and Serafina Núñez.
Both tendencies moved toward a formal, linguistic experimentalism, but the conversational tone was maintained as is evident, for example, in the works of Osvaldo Navarro, Waldo González, Alberto Serret, Raúl Hernández Novás, Carlos Martí, Reina María Rodríguez, Alberto Acosta-Pérez, Virgilio López Lemus, Esbértido Rosendi Cancio, Ricardo Riverón Rojas, León de la Hoz, Ramón Fernández-Larrea and Roberto Manzano.
Other writers who reached full maturity during these times were Sigfredo Ariel, Chely Lima, Jesús David Curbelo, Antonio José Ponte, Rita Martín, Orlando Rossardi, Emilio García Montiel, Carlos Alfonso, Frank Abel Dopico, Damaris Calderón, Teresa Melo, Nelson Simón, Juana García Abas, Ronel González, León Estrada, Reinaldo García Blanco, Rito Ramón Aroche, Caridad Atencio, Ismael González Castañer, Carlos Esquivel Guerra, Alpidio Alonso Grau, Alberto Sicilia Martínez, Ricardo Alberto Pérez, Manuel Sosa, Sonia Díaz Corrales, Norge Espinosa, Pedro Llanes, Edel Morales, Arístides Vega Chapú, Francis Sánchez, Ileana Álvarez, Rigoberto Rodríguez Entenza, Berta Kaluf, Luis Manuel Pérez Boitel, Laura Ruiz, Odette Alonso, Dolan Mor, Alberto Lauro, William Navarrete, Carlos Pintado, Alfredo Zaldívar, Yamil Díaz and Edelmis Anoceto Vega.
Many of these poets belonged to the Generation of the Fifty, such as Heberto Padilla, Belkis Cuza Malé, Juana Rosa Pita, Rita Geada, José Kozer, Ángel Cuadra, Esteban Luis Cárdenas and Amelia del Castillo.
"[4] Among the poets born after 1959, especially in the 1960s, and who resided outside Cuba were Antonio José Ponte, María Elena Hernández, Damaris Calderón, Dolan Mor, Alessandra Molina, Odette Alonso and Rita Martin.
Novelist, essayist and musicologist, he greatly influenced the development of Latin American literature, particularly by his style of writing, which incorporates several dimensions of imagination—dreams, myths, magic and religion—in his concept of reality.
Toward the end of the 19th century, with the publication of Cecilia Valdés (1882) by Cirilo Villaverde and Mi tío el empleado (1887) by Ramón Meza, the Cuban novel began to lose its semblance.
Between 1967 and 1968, a significant burst of literature took place inside and outside of Cuba with works such as Tres tristes tigres by Guillermo Cabrera Infante, El mundo alucinante by Reinaldo Arenas and De donde son los cantantes by Severo Sarduy.
With the exception of Alejo Carpentier in his twilight, Severo Sarduy and the return of José Soler Puig with El pan dormido, the Cuban novel entered a low period characterized by Ambrosio Fornet.
Toward the end of the decade, the novel form began to recover with the first books written by Manuel Pereira, Antonio Benítez Rojo and Alfredo Antonio Fernández, who turned their attention to the Latin American "boom", at which time another genre was born inside and outside of Cuba—la memoria novelada ("fictionalized memory")—with De Peña Pobre by Cintio Vitier and La Habana para un infante difunto by Guillermo Cabrera Infante.
With regard to the current scene, debated studies from the International Colloquium "El mundo caribeño: retos y dinámicas" ("The Caribbean world: challenges and dynamics), which took place in June 2003 at the Michel de Montaigne University Bordeaux 3, concluded that we are now encountering "a literature that does not shut up or stop joking, a literature of disenchantment and natural pessimism that is very realist, sometimes violent, and that touches on themes that beforehand were taboo, inhibited and censured, such as homosexuality, religious discrimination, marginality, the incidents of the war in Angola, the debacle of socialism, double standards, new riches, corruption of the white collar class, prostitution, drugs, the uncertain future, the pain of exile, etc."
The symposium's distinguished authors included Leonardo Padura, Fernando Velázquez Medina, Abilio Estévez, Miguel Mejides, Julio Travieso, Jorge Luis Hernández, Alexis Díaz Pimienta, Ronaldo Menéndez, Mylene Fernández, David Mitrani Arenal, Arturo Arango, Guillermo Vidal, Antonio Rodríguez Salvador, Reinaldo Montero, Alberto Garrandés, Eduardo del Llano, Rodolfo Alpízar, Jesús David Curbelo, Raul Aguiar, Luis Cabrera Delgado, Andrés Casanova, Ena Lucía Portela, Alberto Garrido and Francisco López Sacha.
The period of maturity began in the 1930s, with writers who included Virgilio Piñera and his Cuentos Fríos (1956), Alejo Carpentier with La guerra del tiempo (1958) and Onelio Jorge Cardoso with El cuentero (1958).
Despite that, works published during the five-year period include El fin del caos llega quietamente (1971) by Ángel Arango, Onoloria (1973) by Miguel Collazo, Los testigos (1973) by Joel James and Caballito blanco (1974) by Onelio Jorge Cardoso.
The decade of the 1970s finished its course with works that included Al encuentro (1975) by Omar González, Noche de fósforos (1976) by Rafael Soler, Todos los negros tomamos café (1976) by Mirta Yáñez, Los lagartos no comen queso (1975) by Gustavo Euguren, Acquaria (1975) by Guillermo Prieto, El arco de Belén (1976) by Miguel Collazo, Acero (1977) by Eduardo Heras León and El hombre que vino con la lluvia (1979) by Plácido Hernández Fuentes.
However, these writers only became established in the 1990s, a decade that gave rise to many authors: Alberto Guerra Naranjo, Alexis Díaz-Pimienta, David Mitrani Arenal, Alberto Garrandés, José Miguel Sánchez (Yoss), Verónica Pérez Kónina, Raúl Aguiar, Ricardo Arrieta, Ronaldo Menéndez, Eduardo del Llano, Michel Perdomo, Alejandro Álvarez, Daniel Díaz Mantilla, Ena Lucía Portela, Rita Martín, Waldo Pérez Cino, Antonio José Ponte, Karla Suárez, Jorge Ángel Pérez, Mylene Fernández Pintado, Adelaida Fernández de Juan, Anna Lidia Vega Serova, Gina Picart, Carlos Esquive Guerral, Félix Sánchez Rodríguez, Marcial Gala, Rogelio Riverón, Jorge Ángel Hernández, Lorenzo Lunar, Marco Antonio Calderón Echemendía, Antonio Rodríguez Salvador, Pedro de Jesús López, Luis Rafael Hernández, Michel Encinosa and Juan Ramón de la Portilla.
Some of the most renowned essayists were Alejo Carpentier, José Lezama Lima, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, Ramiro Guerra, Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring, Cintio Vitier, Jorge Mañach, Graziella Pogolotti and Roberto Fernández Retamar.
Among many other writers of note are Jorge Mañach, Ramiro Guerra, Juan Marinello, Medardo Vitier, José Antonio Portuondo, Carlos Rafael Rodríguez, Raúl Roa and Faisel Iglesias.
During the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st, the development of essay writing accelerated, with dozens of writers cultivating the genre: Cintio Vitier, Fina García Marruz, Roberto Fernández Retamar,Roberto Friol, Rolando Pérez (Cuban poet), Ambrosio Fornet, Graziella Pogolotti, Adelaida de Juan, Rine Leal, Leonardo Acosta, Justo C. Ulloa, Enrico Mario Santi, Rafael Rojas, Jorge Luis Arcos, Enrique Sainz, Luis Álvarez, Raúl Hernández Novás, Virgilio López Lemus, Enrique Ubieta Gómez, Alberto Garrandés, Alberto Abreu Arcia, Roberto Zurbano, Beatriz Maggi, Emilio Ichikawa, Madeline Cámara, Rita Martín, Salvador Redonet-Cook, Vitalina Alfonso, and Amir Valle.
This may help to explain why women writers in Cuba experienced a publishing lull, though creatively and culturally encouraged through the establishment of Casa de Las Américas and Imprenta Nacional in 1959.
Others children's writers of the century include Cirilo Villaverde with El librito de los cuentos y las conversaviones (1847), Eusebio Guiteras Fonts with his reading books used as official texts in elementary education, and Francisco Javier Balmaceda with Fábulas morales (1861).