Analysis of Miguel Hernandez’s Poetry
CHILD Yuntero
This poem tells the story of a very poor young man who owns only one ox and a plow.
Metric Analysis:
- Consists of 15 verses and 60 lines.
- Uses eight-syllable verses.
- Employs consonant rhyme with an ABAB rhyme scheme (chained rhyme).
- The type of art is minor, with 15 quatrains.
Expressive Resources:
- “Meat yoke” is a metaphor.
- “Was born, as the tool” is a comparison.
- “An olive-colored soul” is synesthesia.
- “To live” and “to die” create an antithesis.
- “Life as a war” is another comparison.
- The beginning of verses 29 and 30 feature anaphora, repeating “force” in verses 46, 47, 50, and 51.
- Polysyndeton is used throughout.
ACEITUNEROS (Olive Pickers)
This poem is an ode to working people, specifically olive pickers.
Metric Analysis:
- Composed of 12 stanzas that are quatrains.
- Art is minor.
- Uses eight-syllable verses.
- Employs consonant rhyme with an ABAB rhyme scheme (chained rhyme).
Expressive Resources:
- “Aceituneros” is a metonymy, representing proximity to trees.
- “Who, who lifted the olives?” is a rhetorical question.
- “Money”, “sir”, and “work and sweat” form an enumeration.
- “The olive raised a hand” is personification.
- “Your blood, your life” is a symmetry.
- “That you buried in poverty, that I stamped on front, which you cut the head” uses symmetry and anaphora.
- “Jaen, get up” is personification.
STALKING MAN (1939)
FIRST SONG
This poem deals with the arrival of war (Spanish Civil War 1936-39) and its associated disasters, destruction, and death.
Metric Analysis:
- Consists of 22 verses.
- Stanzas are irregular, rhyme is absent, and verses are free.
Expressive Resources:
- “Has removed the field”, “recalled his claws” are personifications.
- “What a chasm between the olive and the man is discovered!” forms an antithesis.
- “Claws which was of soft and flowers” is a metaphor.
- “Mild meat” is synesthesia.
- “He returned the tiger” is a metaphor.
- “Today’s love is death, and the man stalking the man” is a metaphorical antithesis.
LAST SONG
This poem expresses the little hope the poet has left for the future after the war.
Metric Analysis:
- Consists of 18 verses.
- Uses seven-syllable verses (minor art).
- Employs assonance rhyme with an AAA rhyme scheme.
Expressive Resources:
- “Painted my house” is a hyperbaton.
- “Passions and misfortunes” is synesthesia.
- “With his empty desk, with its dilapidated bed” are personifications and feature anaphora.
- “His intense vine” is a metaphor.
- The last verse is an epiphoneme sentence summarizing the argument.
CANCIONERO And Ballads OF ABSENCE (1938-1941)
UNLESS YOUR BELLY
This poem is an exaltation of the womb, where the child was born.
Metric Analysis:
- Consists of 16 verses.
- It is a ballad (minor art).
- Each line has 5 syllables (five syllables).
- Employs assonance rhyme with an AAA rhyme scheme.
Expressive Resources:
- This poem is full of anaphora, repeating “less” in verses 1, 3, 7, 9, 13 and 15, and repeating “all” in verses 2, 4, 10, 11, and 14.
- “Less your body, everything is confused” is an exaggeration or hyperbole.
- The words “future” and “past” are antithetical.
- “Dust free world” is a metaphor.
WAR
This poem is an attack on war, highlighting its death and destruction.
Metric Analysis:
- Consists of 68 verses.
- It is a romance (minor art).
- Uses eight-syllable verses.
- Employs assonance rhyme with an AAA rhyme scheme.
Expressive Resources:
- “All mothers of the world” is hyperbole.
- “The source alone and the past without inheritance” are metaphors.
- “Pale, fertility is overwhelmed” is personification in lines 13 and 14.
- Anaphora is used, repeating “voices” at the beginning of verse 13 and 14 and repeating “blood” at the beginning of verses 23 and 27 (which is also a metaphor).
- “Swallowed by the grass” is hyperbole.
- “Desire to kill invade” is personification.
- “The silence, dumb” is a paradox.
LAST POEMS
SON OF LIGHT AND SHADE
This poem is formed in 3 parts: I (SON OF THE SHADOWS) refers to a dark present (war), II (SON OF LIGHT) represents a hopeful future, and III (Son of Light and Shadow) sings to his son, born of both light and shadow.
Metric Analysis (III – Son of light and shadow):
- Composed of 10 stanzas.
- It is a serventesio quartet or cross rhyme (major art).
- Uses hexameter verses.
- Employs consonant rhyme with an ABAB rhyme scheme.
Expressive Resources:
- It is full of metaphors, such as “honey on your nipples”, “maternal springs”, “Lunar your veins”, “people of hives”.
- “It’s like your blood was all sweetness” is a comparison.
- “Flow woman”, “if my bones burn with the flame of iron” are hyperboles.
- “To cast the child always stayed”, “feel your hands and soul breath” are hyperbatons.
- “A bunch of time, blood, the two branches, in a beam of caresses, hair, the two beams” is enumeration.
- “Dead” and “alive”, “you and me”, “asleep and awake” are antithetical.
Nanas de la cebolla (Onion Lullabies)
This poem is a song about the poverty of his wife and child (lullabies or songs of hunger).
Metric Analysis:
- Consists of 12 verses and 84 lines.
- Stanzas of 7 verses (lesser art).
- Employs assonance rhyme with an AAA rhyme scheme (romance structure).
- Meter is irregular with verses of five, six, and seven syllables.
Expressive Resources:
- “The onion is frost”, “frost of your days and my nights. Hunger and onion: black ice and frost big and round”, “In the cradle of hunger”, “Lark of my house” are metaphors.
- “To swallow the moon” is an exaggeration or hyperbole.
- “I removed Solitudes” is a hyperbaton.
- “I woke up from being a child. Never wake up” is an antithesis.