The Legends and Poetry of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer

Posted on Sep 21, 2024 in English

Monte de las Animas

It tells what happened in the Monte de las Animas, located on the outskirts of Soria, on the banks of the Duero River. Legend has it that it happened to a young man named Alonso trying to please his cousin. The action takes place in the Middle Ages, and the legend is told by the character Alonso, within the work.

You could say that at the time, the account recalls some facts that the character himself knew. The facts are detailed. Then, a flashback occurs, i.e., it recalls a story that happened prior to the time they are living. So goes his memory, which occurs in twenty-four hours, from morning until dawn the next day.

Alonso

Heir to the land on which the story unfolds. He is an innocent young boy in love with the beautiful Beatrice. He dies to please her by going in search of a lost object of hers.

Beatrice

She is the cousin of Alonso, the daughter of the Counts of Borges. She is a beautiful young woman. She looks like a very cold and calculating woman capable of manipulating Alonso.

Other Characters

Counts
Servants
Hunters
Templars
Gentlemen

Moonbeam

The legend is set in Soria. In this legend, we can distinguish various issues: Love, Dream, and fantasy come together with the intangible woman.

Manrique loves solitude. He is a poet who is retiring to write or read to a secluded place where his imagination makes him see fairies. This is how he discovers his “beloved.” He is going crazy as the work progresses until finally, he is “disillusioned.”

Approach

On a moonlit night, Manrique reaches the cloister, chasing a beautiful woman, and calls where he thought she was, the woman of his dreams, but she is not there.

Node

He leaves there and heads towards the mall, where he seems to see the reflection of his love interest, running and suddenly stopping.

Outcome

He discovers that what he was chasing was a moonbeam.

The Kiss

During the War of Independence (1808-1814), a young dragoon officer in the French army is staying with his troops in a former convent in the city of Toledo. The first night, the officer finds, in the chapel of the dilapidated building, a statue kneeling in a devout attitude belonging to a lady named Elvira Castañeda. The officer is immediately entranced by the marble beauty of the lady. Beside it is the statue of her husband in the same prayer attitude. Since that time, a feeling akin to jealousy invades the officer.

The next day he explains to his fellow soldiers his unique crush and invites them to an evening party at which, besides knowing his lady, they should not miss the champagne. At night they all go to the convent and light a bonfire to keep warm. The officer shows them the statue of his dreams, and all praise its beauty. Then they start to drink and sing. When the drink has had its effect, the young man goes to the statue of her husband and throws his glass in his face as a challenge.

Then he goes to the lady with the intention of kissing her. The soldiers then look horrified when the stone knight gives a death blow with his gloved hand to the officer.

Maese Perez, the Organist

The action takes place in Seville, in the convent of Santa Inés. The protagonist is the organist Maese Pérez, blind from birth, but this was not an obstacle to playing the organ. He had only friends, and his only family was his daughter. People loved to go to hear him play because he played very heavenly music.

He did so well that the Archbishop of Seville proposed to go to the cathedral to play at midnight mass. Maese Pérez became very ill and, watching Christmas, seeing that he was about to die, wanted to be taken to his church to play one last time.

The Archbishop appointed a substitute to play in his place (who was very jealous). As Maese Pérez asked, he was playing at the cathedral on Christmas Eve and the following year. He did, but he did not play very well and was incomparable to the blind man. That same day, to everyone’s surprise, a beautiful melody sounded in the convent where the old man played, but no one was sitting at the organ playing the instrument. It was the spirit of Maese Pérez who played that day. This miracle was repeated until the body was destroyed.

Green Eyes

Gold Bangle

The White Deer

The legend is set in Aragon in the Middle Ages. In this legend appears an Aragonese nobleman, Don Dinis, who had a daughter, Constance, with a personal servant named Garcés. One day, after finishing the game, they all gathered under some trees, and a lad who came told Don Dinis that it was not quite right because they thought that all the deer were against him, and one day, looking for deer, Corzas appeared, a group led by a white doe that fled in panic. Everyone laughed except Esteban Garcés, who couldn’t stop thinking about the story of the white deer.

Garcés loved Constance and thought that if he caught the white deer for her, she would fall into his arms. He left the castle armed, thinking he would catch his prey, and after battling all the elements, he spied on her with his flock, and the white deer was caught in a thicket. Garcés shot an arrow and hit the target, but in reality, the deer Constance was rolled on its own.

Topic

“The transformation causes death to become love.”

The Skull Christ

The legend is part of the Reconquista and is set in Toledo. The main characters in this book are Agnes, Alonso, and Lopez.

Alonso and Lopez have been friends since childhood, and both are in love with the same person, Agnes. The two start competing to show who deserves her. In one part of the work, Inés drops a glove to the ground, and López and Alonso catch it, one at each end. Tone, the king, comes and will fight to prevent him from giving the gauntlet to Agnes himself.

They made a party to celebrate the departure of the troops to war the next day, and at the end of the party, López and Alonso left to fight a deathmatch. At first, they find a place with light to fight until they find a lantern that illuminates the Christ with a skull at his feet (hence the name of this legend). When trying to start the match, a light goes out, and then they decide to leave, but the light turns on again (and so repeatedly). It is at this moment that the two come to the same conclusion: that God does not want them to fight. They decide to go to the Palace so that Inés can decide which of them remains, but they find a surprise, Agnes comes with another lover. Alonso and López must inform all the soldiers, who react by laughing at Agnes.

The Miserere

A man finds a book in an abbey. The man, reading the book, discovered at the edge of a page a word whose meaning he did not know, so he asked an old man the meaning. The old man recognizes the word and tells the “researcher” an old legend.

He said that some time ago, a man walked into the abbey seeking shelter and a piece of bread. Those who then lived in the abbey did not give any problem since it was practically their job. At dinner, the monks began to ask the newcomer questions. He was answering almost every question until they reached one from which he did not come out, “What do you do?”. The man replenished that he was a musician and that at that time, he was finishing the Miserere so that the Lord would forgive all his sins. Upon hearing this, one of the monks gathered there told him that his work was done because in that monastery in the mountains, he had heard the dead monks sing Miserere every night. The musician decided to climb to the monastery and take notes to complete the score. He was already inside the monastery when he saw that it was rebuilt only by the skeletons of the monks who climbed up the mountainside to be placed in a line to sing the song. The stunned man tries to stay alert to the response of so many years of work, but when the monks were on verse 10, he left a big flash frozen and left him unconscious. When he awoke the next day, he went down the mountain to reach the abbey and sought refuge there to write the Miserere. He wrote down everything he heard, but when he tried to write the ending, it was impossible. He wrote many drafts, but he did not; such was his frustration that he died mad.

Features

It is characterized by social criticism, and the structure of the work conveys a sense of “Absurd.” It is a novel characterized by action since it is a realistic novel, characterized by the description of the characters, society, etc.

It gives more importance to feelings than reason.
It is the most intimate emotions freely, giving priority to melancholy and despair.

Literary Genre (Lyric Poetry)

Introspection and expression of the author’s feelings.
It requires an effort of interpretation to the reader.
Most lyric poems are characterized by their brevity.
Subjective
Expressed with great frequency, 1st person.
The use of literary or stylistic (for a more speech
bello)

Realistic Fiction

The main theme of the novel is the conflict between the individual and society.
It seeks to know the reason for the marginalization of the character within society.
The center of the novel is the character who meets and expresses the features of the general social group.
Very many (mostly folkloric); meetings
casinos, street rallies, festivals …
It’s a total representation of life, eliminating the fantastic.
The author shows the misery and human interests of the time, becoming critical and judgmental, trying to improve society.

Theme

Mainly they are derived from the bourgeois mentality: power, money, social influence, or political issues of today.

Characters

They reflect the changes and social tensions: Workers, beggars, politicians, and the middle class.

Bécquer’s Life and Historical Context

Poet
Author of stories and legends
Journalist
Biographer
Playwright
Historian
Literary and theater critic

Bécquer was a sentimental author characteristic of Romanticism or the Second Period, also known as late Romanticism. It was an absolutely hectic century, a characteristic reflected in the romantic authors.

Romanticism

It can be defined as a movement against neo-classicism, which gives preference to those feelings.

Born in Seville in 1836, he died in Madrid in 1870, shortly after his brother Valeriano’s death. The life of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer runs from shortly after the regency of Queen Maria Cristina (wife of Fernando VII and mother of Elizabeth II) until the mid-six-year period or Revolutionary Liberal.

Sexenio Liberal

This is the revolution that leads to the final overthrow of Isabel II and causes a six-year period without real power of the Bourbons, from 1868 to 1874.

Bécquer was the one who saw the link, what would become poetry (makes a great twist, typical of Baroque poetry.)

It is also characterized by Banal Poetry, i.e., having little value or importance due to its lack of content.

Bécquer perfectly internalized the romantic mind, in which poetry was a fantasy and internalization of what he wanted, not the living, the excitement of fantasy and imagination. Bécquer was a formally romantic, i.e., present only in rebellion and literary aesthetics. His art, with the most dramatic break (it in). It reflects the struggle of society and breaks with the classical forms, as opposed to looking at the opposite lines. Narrators blend different levels.

Despite his short life, Bécquer has left a very important legacy for the future, becoming a major exponent of the romantic; perhaps, he was one of the last of this literary movement.