Nature, Love, and the Poetic Voice of Miguel Hernández
Nature’s Influence on Miguel Hernández
Nature played a vital role in shaping Miguel Hernández’s poetic voice. As a pastor, he was deeply connected to the natural world, using it as a source of inspiration and metaphor. His early works, such as Perito en Lunas, celebrate the cycles of nature, the countryside, and the landscape. The star becomes a symbol of fertility and life, and through vivid metaphors, Hernández sings to the palm, the pomegranate, the bull, and the sea, transforming these elements into figures of speech.
Love and Nature
Nature also informs Hernández’s love poetry. The natural world provides a rich vocabulary for expressing his passionate love, often depicted through images of the “beam that does not stop” and the “violated whistle.” The turmoil of the Spanish Civil War marked a turning point in his poetry. While his connection to nature remained, his perspective shifted. His homeland and roots became central themes, and the war’s tragic destruction of nature deeply affected him.
Natural Elements as Symbols
Telluric forces and atmospheric elements are recurring motifs in Hernández’s work. The thunderbolt, symbolizing his tormented love, becomes the title of one of his most renowned works, El rayo que no cesa. Rain takes on a melancholic tone, often associated with blood, while thunder represents the creative power of poets. The wind, in Vientos del pueblo, embodies the strength and courage of those fighting for peace and freedom.
Flora and Fauna
Hernández’s poetry is filled with allusions to the flora and fauna of his native environment. The palm tree, a symbol of the Vega Baja del Segura, becomes a personal emblem, as seen in his self-identification as “the Palmero” in Perito en Lunas. Other symbolic trees include the orange and lemon trees of Orihuela, and among flowers, the lily takes precedence over the rose. The bull, a recurring animal symbol, represents the poet’s strength and connection to nature. Other notable animals include the canary and the ox. Water, too, plays a significant role, with the Segura River and the Mediterranean Sea representing male and female versions of this element, while the Manzanares River symbolizes political commitment and struggle.
Love in Hernández’s Poetry
Love is another central theme in Hernández’s work, encompassing various forms, from hopeful and passionate to sensual and familial love. The pain of separation and absence is also explored, with love’s power sometimes described as a “poison of deep poetry.” Sexual love is portrayed as a vital, fateful force, driving the poet towards both passion and its potential consequences. In El rayo que no cesa, love is depicted as an agonizing wound caused by the absence of the beloved. Only the beloved’s presence can bring solace to the poet.
For Hernández, his wife embodies carnal love, and he celebrates the union of bodies without euphemism. Love is a life force, a burning desire for life, fertility, and birth, devoid of hedonistic sensuality. The trilogy Son of light and shadow represents the pinnacle of his love poetry, expressing the essential features of his poetic world. The kiss, in particular, is imbued with visionary grandeur, capable of shaking the world, both living and dead.
Hernández recognizes the dual nature of love, its ability to both caress and wound, a theme explored in Cancionero y romancero de ausencias. Love is a life force intertwined with death, a drive to live fully. Man and woman are destined for love and union, as each is incomplete without the other. The love for his wife and child is depicted as a pure, beloved white. When his wife becomes a mother, her figure takes on a monumental significance. The bride is the dawn that illuminates the rising sun in Son of light and shadow, born from the clash between night and day. His wife becomes an obsessive idea, and in prison, she and their son are his constant thoughts and an inexhaustible source of inspiration for his most profound and moving poems.
Hernández’s love poetry has been compared to that of Vicente Aleixandre, reflecting the depth and complexity of this theme in his work.