Themes in Miguel Hernández’s Poetry
Miguel Hernández’s Poetry
Main Themes
Miguel Hernández’s poetry can be explored through four stages, each reflecting key concepts:
Orihuela Phase:
Focus on nature, as seen in Perito en lunas.
Love and Existential Phase:
Exploration of love and existential themes in Rayo sin cesar.
Fighting Phase:
Poetry of social commitment: Viento del pueblo and El hombre acecha.
Final Stage:
Themes of freedom, justice, and love in Cancionero y romancero de ausencias.
The Theme of Nature
Depiction of the rural environment of Orihuela, sublimating reality with references to grazing, birds, sun, and sunset.
Bucolic nature in harmony.
Christian worldview of nature, highlighting aromas, flavors, and colors.
Nature as a locus amoenus, where lovers intertwine amidst adversity.
The Theme of Love
Love is a recurring theme, manifested in various forms:
Carnal love and attraction, sometimes as an internal struggle between God and Eros.
Incipient love expressed with regret, reminiscent of 15th-century Petrarchan style.
Painful love due to rejection, rooted in provincial morality.
Love and joy related to his wife and son, alongside tenderness and grief.
Love and hatred resulting from famine and war, animalizing man.
Love and hope amidst the absence of justice, love, and freedom.
The Theme of Life and Death
Synthesis of life, love, and death, as expressed in Cancionero y romancero de ausencias.
Death as a part of life, both existentially (man born for death) and as a seed for the continuation of the species.
Friendship and elegies, notably for Ramón Sijé.
Love as light and clarity for life, and shade for death, symbolized by bones and rain.
The Theme of Social Commitment
Initial theocentric focus, condemning revolutionary acts.
Influenced by Machado, Lorca, and Alberti, advocating for agricultural reform.
Social commitment rooted in personal experience, feeling like “people of my own milk.”
Viento del pueblo expresses optimistic brotherhood and freedom.
Republican defeat leads to pain and despair, but with fidelity to his origins.
El hombre acecha ends with a call for hope.
Symbolism in Hernández’s Poetry
Stage 1:
Moon symbolizes nature.
Stage 2:
Ray metaphors love; bull symbolizes love’s pain.
Stage 3:
Wind represents history; destroyed earth symbolizes nature and work.
Stage 4:
Light and shade represent joy and hope versus tragedy.