Juan Ramón Jiménez: Life, Poetry, and Evolution
Generation of ’14
The Generation of ’14, or Noucentista school, occurred in the 1920s and had a different intellectual climate. It is characterized by:
- Intellectuals are usually academically trained.
- Attitude of Europeanist research.
- Awareness of the reality of the country.
Their method is based on rigor and high standards. They abandoned the passionate tone. The intellectuals were considered a select minority. This led to a kind of literature in which the intellectual and conceptual took precedence over the emotional and sentimental.
Juan Ramón Jiménez
Juan Ramón Jiménez was born in Huelva in 1881. He was considered the new modernist poet by Rubén Darío and Villaespesa. The death of his father caused him a serious crisis, and he was committed to an asylum in France. He visited the Free Institution of Teaching, and after suffering another depression, he stayed in the student residence. The Civil War forced him to leave Spain for Puerto Rico. He was a man dedicated to his work, very sensitive, and thirsty for beauty and fulfillment. He detached himself from the material details of life and was more obsessed with his creation. He lived alone in his world. His idea of poetry is dominated by a triple thirst: a thirst for beauty, a thirst for knowledge, and a thirst for eternity. Poetry is beautiful; it is a world of knowledge; it is the expression of a yearning for eternity.
Themes:
- Poetic creation: the search for beauty.
- Nature: death as felt.
- Reality: the need for eternity.
- God: identification of God with beauty and reality; God is the consciousness of the poem.
His poetic career transitioned from modernism to new forms, pure poetry, intellectual and challenging.
Stages of his career:
- Simple, ‘innocent’ poetry.
- Poetry wrapped in the garb of modernism.
- Screening step towards a new simplicity.
- Bare poetry.
Three main phases:
- Sensitive Epoch: From its inception to 1918.
- Intellectual Epoch: It begins with “Diario de un poeta recién casado” (1916) and lasts until he left Spain in 1936.
- ‘Sufficient or True’ Epoch: From 1936 until his death.
Juan Ramón had a peculiar spelling that led him to reflect the phonetics of words or dispense with certain letters, such as ‘g’ for the loud sound.
Sensitive or Modernist Epoch
He started writing very early. In 1903, he wrote his first book, “Arias Tristes”. The poetry is of the simplest form, contained, with transparent emotion. The influence of symbolism is evident in the intimacy, simplicity, smoothness, and musicality of the melancholic tone. Feelings of loneliness, melancholy, and the passage of time predominate. Octosyllables, assonance, and sober language are prevalent.
Works:
- From 1903-1908: “Jardines Lejanos”, “Pastorales”, “Baladas de Primavera”.
- From 1908-1915: “Elegías”, “La Soledad Sonora”, “Poemas Mágicos y Dolientes”, “Sonetos Espirituales”, “Platero y yo”, “Estío”.
Intellectual Epoch (1916-1936)
The goal was to strip the language and translate the essentials, abandoning sentimentality and using modern language and free verse. Simplicity of expression and purification of style are key. It is a difficult, abstract, and metaphysical poetry. In 1916, he broke with modernism with “Diario de un poeta recién casado”, disappearing the abundance of adjectives, the modernist lexicon, and the sound rhythms. It is bare poetry and a step of conceptual and emotional concentration. Short, dense poems, in brief and free verse, or slightly assonant without rhyme. He included phrases in English, prose, and announcements.
Important books:
- “Eternidades”
- “Piedra y Cielo”
- “Poesía”
The poet appeals to intelligence as the muse of inspiration. This intellectual stage is crowned with “En el otro costado”.
Sufficient or True Epoch (From 1936)
On the other side are seven books that include the poem “Espacio”. It expresses the feeling of fusion with nature in a more fluid and colorful way. “Dios deseado y deseante” led to contact or the position of a God who identifies with nature or the beauty of creation.