Miguel Hernández Gilabert and Other Spanish Poets

Posted on Sep 6, 2024 in Latin

Miguel Hernández Gilabert (1910-1942)

Miguel Hernández Gilabert (Orihuela, October 30, 1910 – Alicante, March 28, 1942) was a Spanish poet and dramatist. From humble beginnings, he had to leave school early to work. However, he still developed his capacity for poetry thanks to being an avid reader of classical Spanish poetry.

Part of the literary circle in Orihuela, where he met Ramon Sijé and established a great friendship with him. In 1930 he began to publish his poems in magazines such as El Pueblo de Orihuela and Alicante Day.

In the 1930s, Hernández traveled to Madrid and worked in various publications, establishing relationships with the poets of the time. On his return to Orihuela, he wrote Perito en Lunas, which reflects the influence of authors he read in his infancy and those he met during his trip to Madrid.

Once established in Madrid, he worked as an editor in the dictionary Taurine de Cossio and Educational Missions by Alejandro Casona. He also worked for major Spanish poetry magazines. During these years, he wrote poems entitled The Whistle and Image Infringed Your Mark, and the most famous, The Lightning that Does Not Stop (1936).

He took an active part in the Spanish Civil War, and at its end, he tried to leave the country but was arrested on the border with Portugal. Sentenced to death, his sentence was commuted to thirty years, but he died of tuberculosis on March 28, 1942, at the prison in Alicante.

During the war, he wrote Wind of the People (1937) and The Man Stalks (1938) with a style that became known as “poetry of war.” While in jail, he completed Songbook and Ballad of Absence (1938-1941). His works are influenced by Garcilaso, Góngora, Quevedo, and San Juan de la Cruz.

Luis Cernuda (1902-1963)

Luis Cernuda was born in 1902 in Seville. He was a student of Pedro Salinas. A supporter of the Republic, he was exiled in 1938. He traveled through Britain and the United States and died in Mexico in 1963.

Loneliness, pain, and tenderness are characteristic of Cernuda’s personality. His discontent with the world and his rebellion were due in large part to his homosexuality, his awareness of being an outcast. He admitted to being a “misfit.”

His main influences come from Romantic writers: Keats, Hölderlin, Bécquer, as well as the classics, especially Garcilaso. There is a very proper desire for synthesis of the Generation of ’27.

His work is based on the contrast between his desire for personal achievement (desire) and the limits imposed by the surrounding world (reality). Following is a romantic poetry style.

The most common themes are loneliness, the desire for a livable world, and, above all, love (exalted or dissatisfied). Cernuda has a very personal style, away from fads.

In his early plays, he explored pure poetry, classicism, and surrealism, but from 1932 he began a personal style that was more and more simple (a simple lucidly elaborated), based on a triple rejection:

From the very marked rhythm (use key verses).
From the rhyme.
The language – bright and full of images: he wanted to get close to the “spoken language” and a colloquial tone (colloquial language that hides a profound development).

Since 1936, Cernuda grouped his books together under one title: The Reality and Desire, which he would continue to expand until the final version in 1964. This work consists of cycles:

Start: pure poetry (Perfil del aire, 1924-27, was poorly received, Dámaso Alonso says he was still “immature”) and classic Garcilaso (eclogue, elegy, and ode, 1927-28).
Surrealism: A River, a Love, 1929; Forbidden Pleasures, 1931.
His masterpiece is Donde habite el olvido (1932-33), with a language already his own; it is a desolate and sad book, extremely sincere.

Federico García Lorca (1898-1936)

Federico García Lorca (Fuentevaqueros, June 5, 1898 – Víznar, August 19, 1936) was a Spanish poet and dramatist. In 1915 he began studying Philosophy and Law at the University of Granada.

He was part of El Rinconcillo, a meeting of artists from Granada where he met Manuel de Falla. Between 1916 and 1917, he carried out a series of journeys through Spain with his fellow students, meeting Antonio Machado. In 1919 he moved to Madrid and settled in the Residencia de Estudiantes, coinciding with numerous writers and intellectuals.

Together with a group of intellectuals, he founded the Granada magazine Gallo in 1928, of which only two issues were published. In 1929 he traveled to New York and Cuba. Two years later he founded the university theater group La Barraca, to bring theater to the people, and in 1936 he returned to Granada where he was arrested and executed for his liberal ideas.

He wrote both poetry and drama, but in recent years turned more to the latter, participating not only in its creation but also in the staging and editing.

In his first book of poetry, he is more modernist, in the wake of Antonio Machado, Rubén Darío, and Salvador Rueda. In a second stage, he combines the modern with the avant-garde, based on a traditional foundation.

As for his theatrical work, Lorca uses lyrical, mythical, and symbolic features and uses both popular song and the excesses of Calderón or puppet theater. In his plays, the visual is as important as the linguistic, and the dramatic always prevails.

Today Federico García Lorca is the most widely read Spanish poet of all time.

Lorca’s Poetry

First book: “Book of Poems” is a youthful work in which modernist influence can be seen, but a glimpse of his later poetry can also be observed.

“Songs” is a book consisting of a series of short poems of great formal simplicity, with a popular, agile tone in which, along with children’s issues, more tragic themes emerge. Lorca’s brilliance can be seen in the metaphors.

Poems about a Tragic Andalusia:

“Poem of the Cante Jondo” shows the roots, the pain, and the tears of the land of Andalusia. With this book, the author achieves a beautiful poetry of folk tunes, musical rhythm, and a tragic spirit.
“Gypsy Ballads” recreates, as in the previous book, the world of the Roma. In his poetry, he blends folk elements with cultic elements that constitute a complex poetry, rich with magnificent symbols and original metaphors.

Surrealist Poetry:

“Poet in New York” is a work inspired by the feelings produced in the author during his time in this city, a protest against a dehumanized and materialistic civilization, etc. For this, he uses free verse, visionary images, and the rich expressiveness of a language that runs through surreal paths.
Other works: “Lament for the Death of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías,” an extensive and thrilling elegy in four parts, which the author writes to show his grief over the death of a bullfighter friend. In it, he fuses elements of popular poetry and surrealism.
“Divan del Tamarit” is a work of great suggestion and contained pain, inspired by Arab-Andalusian poetry.
“Sonnets of Dark Love,” all of perfect construction, dealing with the theme of love in a tone of bitterness and with language that is always sad and melancholic.