Poetic Language of Miguel Hernández: Symbols and Rhetorical Figures
The Poetic Language of Miguel Hernández: Symbols and Rhetorical Figures
His poetic world is created by an evolving conception of the poem and its theme. There are two key sources in the symbolism of Miguel Hernández. Both come from nature.
The images and symbols vary in intensity and meaning, although sometimes using the same lexical items.
First Stage: The Moon
In the first stage, the moon is a central motif in his poems. The moon has a process of meaning: from real nature (“the moon is beginning to expire”) to innocent metaphors (“rainy moon”). In Expert in Moons, the moon is the center of their universe; the poet declares himself an “expert” on moons in two meanings:
- Natural: The contemplation of the shepherd.
- Artistic: Objects in the environment are reduced to lunar forms (well, watermelon, wheel, etc.).
The moon may have different meanings in his metaphors:
- The moon as an example of the behavior of nature.
- The moon symbolizes the poet’s task.
- The lunar phases represent the evolution of poetry.
In general, the symbols used by the poet are all that surrounds everyday life in his native Orihuela: palm trees, watermelon, etc.
The poetic devices that are seen are hyperbaton, ellipsis, and paraphrase, and the frequent use of lexical repetition. This feature is henceforth one of the constants of his work.
Second Stage: Lightning and the Bull
In his second stage, haunting images of knives, daggers, swords, and especially the lightning bolt (A Carnivorous Knife…) appear. “Lightning” in the title Unrelenting Lightning has a loving context: the poet wants to experience carnal enjoyment, but social rules prevent him. Lightning is the unfulfilled desire, the erotic attraction that is not reciprocated. The lightning bolt has two phases:
- Lightning as a threat and curse.
- Lightning as strength and a claw.
Another symbol Hernández uses is the bull. In the context of love, the bull has two interpretations:
- The bull, in freedom, symbolizing virility and masculinity.
- The bull in the square symbolizes the fate of pain and death.
In epic poetry, the ox is a pejorative social and political symbol (I am not of a people of oxen). Animalization and reification serve to show solidarity with tenderness against injustice. In “The Child Yoked,” he presents a minor in “yoke flesh” as an ox, and identifies the man as a soulless “fierce,” “tiger” in the “first songs.”
The love theme shows the use of antithesis and many anaphors, which function to intensify emotions.
Third Stage: Wind and Earth
In his third stage, the wind is a symbol of the epic poem, “Wind of the People.” At this time, it is a symbol of social and political engagement with the weakest: “Of the people, I have wind, / the people’s wind drags me…”
The earth is a symbol of nature and work. Land is life and death in man’s existence. He has come to be called the “poet of the earth” because the earth crosses all his work: “I want to be crying, the gardener / of the land they occupy and manure.”
Fourth Stage: Light and Shadow
In Hernández’s last poems, light and shadow represent life and death, hope and frustration. The shadow takes over the world of Miguel Hernández’s poetry as the war advances, especially after the death of his first child and his time in jail. Hernández closed his victorious life with a few verses of light on the shadow, that is, a little hope, the joy of the unborn child (“and the sun rises in your belly where he found his nest”).
Comparisons are now simple, anaphors are smoothed, raw realism, the direct questions to his soul, the antitheses are many, parallelism and correlation measures are used responsibly. These poems are laden with emotion and served to provide an outlet for the poet’s pain.