Miguel Hernández: Life, Poetry, and Social Commitment
Trajectory, Development, and Review of His Poetry
His path is a bridge between two stages of Spanish poetry. On one hand, due to his precocity and personal contacts, his starting positions are related to the Generation of ’27. On the other hand, due to his age and certain guidelines for his poetry, he belongs to the Generation of ’36. However, his human and poetic commitment also make him a model for social poets of the post-war period. His production reflects three clear attitudes of contemporary poetry:
- Pure poetry, in the style of Góngora (Expert of Moons). The leading figure of pure poetry, J. R. Jiménez, was initially followed by the poets of ’27, all of whom tried to create a dehumanized, anti-sentimental poetry.
- The love poetry of a subjective, impure tone (The Lightning That Never Stops). He puts life at the center of his poetry, and the subject slowly becomes the poetic object. It is deeply human poetry, a poetry of majorities, which addresses issues as essential as love, life, death, and threat. “Poetry of absence.”
- Member and existential tone, which influenced the poetry of the 1950s: Wind of the People, He Who Lurks, and Ballad Songbook and Absences.
Aspects of Style
Symbols and Metaphors
Miguel Hernández’s work is loaded with a highly symbolic language that makes it denser and more poignant. Among the most recurrent is the female womb, the transcendent symbol that binds to love and life. The bull, with its burden of tragedy and violence, becomes a crucial piece of Hernández’s poetic universe.
Language
His poems are the subject of careful elaboration. Parallel structures are the main factor in traditional poetry, in which Hernández grew. He pours his personal feelings into these harmonic reiterations whose main charm is their simple expressiveness. As for the lexicon, as in the opening moments of cultism, neologisms, and artificial compounds, it is initially Gongorine. In contrast, it becomes natural and simple as the poet advances in the process of lyrical internalization, and then it will be dramatically violent and grim.
Themes of His Poetry
Nature
Miguel Hernández was born in a rural environment of Mediterranean Spain in the early 20th century. In the first stage of his poetry, nature ranges from landscapes to everyday elements of his modest existence. He writes about what he knows with faith and fervor (Orihuela and landscape components of rural life). Hernández considers himself part of nature; he exalts and dignifies it, from the humblest to the majestic and sublime. In the next stage, nature serves to locate his social claims, always on the side of the most just or the needy. The spontaneous contrasts with sophistication, and malice, as much as human goodness, disappear when the natural landscape disappears.
The Tragic Sense of Life
After 1936, his own life experiences led him first to activist poetry and then to the naked and pathetic expression of intimacy in his poetic word. He laments the unhappy fate to which he feels doomed from birth. The sense of threat makes a deep impression on all his work, overshadowing the whole concept of Hernández and providing a special color and rhythm to his artistic creation, reflecting a radically tragic vision of life.
The Feeling of Love
Love is presented as an impetuous passion, a carnal love. Sexual allusions are constant and very straightforward in all his work. There is an obsession with talking about the different body parts and sexual organs.
Social and Political Commitment
Hernández is a poet rooted in passion, and he turned this passion not only into the sphere of intimacy but also into solidarity with humanity. His poetry is more social than political.