Miguel Hernández: Bridging Tradition and Modernism in Verse
Tradition and Modernity in Miguel Hernández’s Poetry
Miguel Hernández’s (MH) poetry is deeply personal. His unique style is the result of various influences, blending the Spanish poetic tradition with modern elements.
This mix of tradition and modernity is not unique to Hernández; it characterizes the work of the Generation of ’27. Spanish poets like García Lorca, Rafael Alberti, and Gerardo Diego embraced both the tradition of the Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Baroque periods, and avant-garde movements. They combined avant-garde readings with the study of classics like Góngora and Quevedo.
The name given to the Spanish avant-garde group of writers was a tribute to the commemoration in 1927 of the 300th anniversary of Góngora’s death. They were interested in Góngora’s avant-garde approach to poetry. They explored the concept of “pure poetry,” aiming to eliminate anecdotal and sentimental elements. Góngora was honored for his blend of tradition and modernity, particularly his radical literary transformation of reality. Our poets found a similarity with the transformation of reality through the metaphor that they invent with intellectual its “pure poetry”
This was the context in which MH began his literary work. His first trip to Madrid in 1931 exposed him to the avant-garde atmosphere, where Góngora was a key reference point.
His first book, “Perito en lunas,” is a stylistic exercise in the manner of Góngora, and is dedicated to Góngora and two other authors, illustrating the coexistence of tradition and modernity.
It is composed of 42 octaves, like Góngora’s “Polyphemus,” paying homage to Góngora through the poem’s metaphorical transformation of reality.
On his second trip to Madrid, Hernández experienced another major influence: Neruda, who was in Spain at the time. Neruda’s surrealist influence sought to end “pure poetry.” Additionally, Vicente Aleixandre, who became a close friend, was also part of this trend. From here, the tension between tradition and modernity in MH’s work was measured by the tension between this torrent and surrealist influence.
In “The Lightning That Never Ceases,” this duality is evident. The tradition is found in the masters of the love sonnet (Lope, Quevedo…), while the art appears in a Nerudian sense, especially in the first poem, “A Carnivorous Knife.” With this work, he moves away from pure poetry to approach the impurity of Neruda, and passions begin to take place in his poetry, which takes place in a strange and tense equilibrium with the love sonnet and Petrarchan tradition. Avant-garde becomes a pained expression, which reaches a new territory, marked by the flesh, the earth, the passion … that come especially Neruda girders and Aleixandre.
“Wind People,” driven by the need for more direct poetry due to the war, confirmed this development towards the impure. Neruda’s influence is evident, as is the dedication to Aleixandre, a Surrealist poet. Forgetting and classical resonances Quevedo and Gongora, definitely enters into a direct conception of poetry that seeks the hearts of men. However, the metric is combined with traditional Spanish Renaissance and Baroque. Now succession of violent images used to express the violence of war and passion of the fight.
In “The Man Lurking,” the surreal image born of the heart and pain continues. The metric alternates between popular traditional romance stanzas, traditional verses learned as the sonnet and free verse avant-garde.
In “Song of Absence,” it is more difficult to discuss both traditional and avant-garde influences. Surrealism inherited virtually disappears before, and survives only in love poems such as “Son of light and shadow” or “Shores of thy womb.” What dominates the rest of the book is short verse poem short and restrained emotion and reflective. There is here a sense of the poem as a personal confession. The poet goes to mourn falling or faltering voice. The proximity of death and reflections on the transience of life expressed in a simple and straightforward aims to bring these poems sometimes Manrique or Quevedo, but ultimately, we can say that this last book totally beyond the duality between modernism and tradition through an entirely personal style based on the absolute simplicity.