Symbols and Imagery in Miguel Hernández’ Poetry
5. Images and Symbols in the Poetry of Miguel Hernández. Poems by Miguel Hernández, simple yet full of literary devices. Although the most prevalent stylistic elements are symbols. Moon: Initially, the poet connects with nature using the symbol of the moon. The moon is central to Hernández’ lyrical work. Throughout his literary career, the moon’s meaning evolves:
- Nature, real and immediate: the star that is.
- Innocent metaphors by Miguel Hernández.
- In Perito en lunas, it is the center of the universe.
The poet uses “expert in moons” in two senses:
- The natural, through contemplation as a shepherd.
- Artistic objects as poetically painted forms.
The author explains his suggestive metaphor: the moon as an example of nature’s behavior. The moon’s cyclical changes are associated with seasonal changes and represent the continuous cycle of life’s excitement. The moon is a primary symbol of astral mythological contraction. The moon-night-death cycle of doom is opposed to sun-day-life. The moon’s association with misfortune stems from mythology and popular tradition, later reflecting female fate. The moon of his youth leads him to love, nature, and freedom. Later, it leads to destruction, and love disappears. In his later poems, the symbol represents love, death, joy, sadness, and fertility-fatality. The moon’s phases metaphorically represent the poetic rise of the creator. Ray: The ray, as a natural element, has two meanings:
- A beam of sunlight.
- A lightning storm.
The persistent ray is situated in a loving context. The beam emerges as a symbol of sorrow, anguish, and unrequited love, the poet’s inability to experience carnal pleasure, causing him pain because his erotic obsession is unrequited. The beam represents unsatisfied desire. The bird and the knife have similar meanings at this stage of inner anguish and external threat. The metaphor of the ray highlights the subject’s value. The lightning has two meanings:
- Lightning as a threat and curse.
- The strength and lightning as an attribute of the subject that cannot truly love (hope).
- Lightning-admiration (from the beam of sunlight).
- Lightning-fear (from the lightning storm).
Toro (Bull): The bull is a recurring motif in Hernández’ work. In his early compositions, the bull is identified with death—not abstract but real and physical—but also relates to love:
- The bull, in freedom, symbolizes virility and masculinity, natural instincts.
- The bullfighting in the square, equated to the feeling of love, symbolizes a fate doomed to pain and death.
In his epic poetry, the ox opposes the bull, representing the castrated bull.
Wind: A predominant symbol in Miguel Hernández’s epic poetry, defined as the wind of the people. It symbolizes social and political commitment and solidarity with the homeless, underpaid, and progressive Republicans. The wind’s significance changes as the writer progresses through life and creates coherent poetic worlds. The wind refers to the collective and has both positive and negative meanings:
- In the first period, it denotes its natural value as an atmospheric phenomenon.
- In religious poetry, the air becomes a mystical and purifying wind.
- In the second period, focusing on the beloved, the wind identifies with the desired woman.
- In the third period, the poet is the wind, the wind of the people, whose strength comes from and returns to the people.
- In the fourth period (prison), the wind means hatred and resentment—a negative wind.
- In the final stage of his life, the wind is a hurricane’s encore.
Earth: The earth symbolizes nature. It is seen as a mother, giving life and hosting after death. For man, the earth is the cradle and grave, encompassing Hernández’s pantheistic philosophy. He became known as a poet of the land because the land is a subject that crosses all his work and represents the cycle of unity in nature. In Hernández’s work, the symbol of the land has several meanings:
- The earth is nature, agriculture, and the world of work.
- In the context of love, the earth is related to love (imitating P. Neruda) and indicates the vitality of love.
- In the context of destroyed history (poems related to childhood), the earth symbolizes germination, especially when a loved one’s body has disappeared.
Light-Shadow: With mystical origins as divine light, influenced by St. John of the Cross in his Orihuela poems, it mutates into applications of light/shadow in love. However, death also appears, imposing its darkest shadow. Hernández closed his life and poetic adventure with verses reaffirming the victory of light over darkness. He overcomes his despondency, and hope triumphs in the light.