José María Valverde: The Origin of the Word (1976)
José María Valverde: Be the Start of the Word (1976)
Introduction
José María Valverde (Valencia de Alcántara, 1926 – Barcelona, 1996) was a poet and teacher. Between 1950 and 1955, following a doctorate in Philosophy in Madrid, he moved to the University of Rome as a reader of Spanish.
In 1956, he became professor of Aesthetics at the University of Barcelona, a position from which he resigned in 1965 in protest against the removal of professors by the Franco regime. Valverde soon stood among the intelligentsia opposed to Franco. In the following years, he alternated his visits to universities in the United States and Canada.
In 1977, at the beginning of the democratic transition, he was returned to his chair. He retired from his university duties in 1992, and from 1993, he was a professor emeritus. His figure of integrity and commitment to justice and freedom have placed Valverde in a prominent place among the mid-twentieth-century Spanish intelligentsia.
Theme and Summary
The poem “In the Beginning Was the Word” is about the origin of the word. In the poem, the author presents how he slowly began to realize, since he learned to talk, the importance of the word.
Analysis of the Structure
The poem is structured in four stanzas, without a set number of verses in each. The structure of the verses is free and they are of high art.
First Stanza
The first verse refers to the author’s childhood. We can see from the verses how suddenly the memory of a little boy seeing one afternoon starts. In this first part, the author as a child learns to speak, and from the outset, understands that it is an essential tool in life to communicate.
In this verse, we find a metaphor, “and from there begins my world, with a *destartalado* floor,” an embodiment “double light,” and a polysyndeton “and clung, and from there begins my world.”
Second Stanza
The second verse alludes to the importance of language, saying it is something innate in us, and we hold onto it forever. It is the key to survival.
In this verse, we find a metaphor, “the mirror of language,” and a paradox, “mine, and strangely.”
Third Stanza
In the third stanza, the author conveys that language is the most essential element to society. Without language, there would be no world, and consequently, no man.
In this verse, we find a metonymy, “a man of books,” and hyperbole, “and it remains alive after the land, the world of the word.”
Fourth Stanza
Finally, the author makes a brief explanation that as children, we did not understand the importance of language; it was merely a communication tool, but now, as adults, we understand what is most essential in the world.
This last paragraph can be related to one aspect of his life, his profession as a professor, because it completely turns to language; his day-to-day is to engage and innovate between words.
In this stanza, we find a simile: “Like being of flesh and bone.”
In conclusion, this poem refers to language and the poet, José María Valverde, a professor whose vocation is to engage fully with language.