{"id":26563,"date":"2010-04-27T18:11:39","date_gmt":"2010-04-27T16:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/?p=26563"},"modified":"2026-08-27T17:29:04","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T15:29:04","slug":"miguel-hernandez-life-and-work","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/miguel-hernandez-life-and-work\/","title":{"rendered":"Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez: Life and Work"},"content":{"rendered":"

To mark International Book Day, the Centre for Senior Citizens (CSM) in London<\/a> also invited me in 2010 to give a lecture. On 27 April 2010, I spoke to them about the great Spanish poet Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez, to mark the centenary of his birth.<\/p>\n

Below, I have reproduced the text of my lecture, which you can also download here as a PDF in Castilian Spanish<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Following my lecture, the Language and Culture Group sent me a heartfelt letter<\/a>, which I am posting here.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n\n

<\/p>\n

MIGUEL HERN\u00c1NDEZ: LIFE AND WORK<\/h1>\n
\n
\n
Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez: Life and Work<\/p>\n Toggle<\/span>
1. INTRODUCTION<\/a><\/li>
2. BODY OF THE TEXT<\/a>
2.1. THE LIFE AND WORK OF MIGUEL HERN\u00c1NDEZ<\/a>
Cycle I: Childhood and Enchantment (1910\u20131925)<\/a><\/li>
Cycle II: Adolescence and Early Verses (1925\u20131931)<\/a><\/li>
Cycle III: First trip to Madrid and publication of “Perito en lunas” (1931\u20131933)<\/a><\/li>
Cycle IV: Second trip to Madrid and \u201cEl Rayo que no Cesa\u201d (1934\u201336)<\/a><\/li>
Cycle V: The Poet in the Civil War (1936\u20131939)<\/a><\/li>
Cycle VI: Persecution, imprisonment and death (1939\u20131942)<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li>
2.2. HIS LEGACY AFTER HIS DEATH AND TODAY<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/li>
3. CONCLUSION<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n
<\/span>1. INTRODUCTION<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez Gilabert (Orihuela, 30 October 1910 \u2013 Alicante, 28 March 1942) was a poet and playwright of particular significance in 20th-century Spanish literature.<\/p>\n
Although he has traditionally been classified as part of the Generation of \u201936, Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez maintained closer ties with the previous generation, to the extent that he was regarded by D\u00e1maso Alonso as \u2018a brilliant follower of the Generation of \u201927\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cFew poets are as generous and luminous as the big lad from Orihuela, whose statue will one day rise amongst the orange blossoms of his slumbering homeland.\u201d Pablo Neruda (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1971).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/span>2. BODY OF THE TEXT<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n
<\/span>2.1. THE LIFE AND WORK OF MIGUEL HERN\u00c1NDEZ<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n
There are many biographers and scholars of Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez, both Spanish (Concha Zardoya) and foreign (William Rose and Marie Chevallier). For this presentation, we have drawn on the relatively recent (2002) biography by Jos\u00e9 Luis Ferris<\/strong>, entitled \u201cMiguel Hern\u00e1ndez: Passions, Prison and Death of a Poet\u201d. Ferris divides the poet\u2019s life into six cycles.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Cycle I: Childhood and Enchantment (1910\u20131925)<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n
He was born the second son into a family in Orihuela who raised livestock. A goat herder from a very early age, Miguel attended the \u2018Nuestra Se\u00f1ora de Montserrat\u2019 school between 1915 and 1916 and received his primary education at the Amor de Dios schools from 1918 to 1923; in 1923, he went on to study for his A-levels at the Santo Domingo College in Orihuela, run by the Jesuits, who nominated him for a scholarship to continue his studies, which his father refused. In 1925, he abandoned his studies on his father\u2019s orders to devote himself exclusively to tending sheep. Although it is not often mentioned, the reality was that a severe economic crisis affected Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s family that year, which is why his father turned to his son for help with the farm work.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Cycle II: Adolescence and Early Verses (1925\u20131931)<\/span><\/h4>\n
Whilst tending the flock, Miguel read voraciously and wrote his first poems. Around this time, Canon Luis Almarcha struck up a friendship with Miguel and provided the young poet with books by San Juan de la Cruz, Gabriel Mir\u00f3, Paul Verlaine and Virgil, amongst others. His visits to the Public Library became increasingly frequent, and he began to form an impromptu literary circle with other young people from Orihuela, centred around his friend Carlos Fenoll\u2019s bakery. The main participants in those gatherings were, in addition to Miguel and Carlos Fenoll himself, his brother Efr\u00e9n Fenoll, Manuel Molina, and Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00edn Guti\u00e9rrez\u2014a future lawyer and essayist who would later adopt the pseudonym \u2018Ram\u00f3n Sij\u00e9\u2019 and to whom Hern\u00e1ndez would dedicate his famous Elegy.<\/p>\n
From this point onwards, books became his main source of education, and he became entirely self-taught. The great authors of the Golden Age \u2013 Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega, Pedro Calder\u00f3n de la Barca, Garcilaso de la Vega and, above all, Luis de G\u00f3ngora, would become his principal teachers.<\/p>\n
On 13 January 1930, his poem \u2018Pastoril\u2019 was published in the Orihuela newspaper \u2018El Pueblo\u2019, and this was the first poem of Miguel\u2019s to be published.<\/p>\n
PASTORIL<\/strong><\/p>\n
By the crystal-clear river
\nthat the golden sun colours.<\/p>\n
Her tears are bitter gall.
\nWhy is the little shepherdess weeping?
\nWhat sorrow, what great heartbreak
\nhas turned her cheek white?<\/p>\n
Her shepherd has abandoned her!
\nHe has gone to the city
\nand left her all alone
\nby the side of the flock.<\/p>\n
She no longer shares his hut
\nnor nurses his lamb!
\nHe no longer says to her, \u2018I love you\u2019,
\nand the girl weeps and weeps!<\/p>\n
\u2018Your fiery mouth\u2019
\nused to say it loved me.
\n\u2018A lie!\u2019 she says sorrowfully,
\n\u2018Oh! Why did he say that to me?\u2019<\/p>\n
I, who blindly believed you,
\nI, who left my homeland
\nto follow you to your mountains,
\nfind myself forsaken by you!…<\/p>\n
By the crystal-clear river
\nwhich the night is casting its shadow upon
\nand where the eastern breeze ripples,
\nthe unhappy girl continues to weep.<\/p>\n
No longer does the tender, white flower
\nwalk towards the hut
\nwhen the sun touches the mountains
\nbeside her shepherd.<\/p>\n
Now she goes alone to the ravine
\nand to the plain, and returns alone;
\nshe walks and returns, sad and dejected,
\nbehind her white flock.<\/p>\n
Why, outcast shepherd,
\ndo you abandon your shepherdess
\nwho, without you, weeps and weeps all the more
\nby the side of the flock?<\/p>\n
Night comes rushing in
\nmourning the blue sky:
\nthe river keeps flowing
\nand the shepherdess keeps moaning.<\/p>\n
Yet she regains her former vigour,
\nand, beautifully serene,
\nburies her dark sorrow
\namong the river\u2019s waters.<\/p>\n
A sacred silence reigns\u2026
\nThe shepherdess weeps no more!
\nYet afterwards it seems she weeps
\nas her flock calls out to her!<\/p>\n
Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez wrote a great deal but published very little; that is why the collections and anthologies vary so much from one to another. From this early period of his writing, I would also like to highlight \u2018To My Soul\u2019.<\/p>\n
TO MY SOUL<\/strong><\/p>\n
They whisper that I speak too little,
\nmy soul, those who know nothing
\nof our long conversations.<\/p>\n
And \u2018La Palmera Levantina\u2019, one of the 13 poems that the singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat included on his second album of Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s poems in 2010, to mark the centenary of the poet\u2019s birth. The first album dates from 1987.<\/p>\n
THE LEVANTINE PALM TREE (excerpt)<\/strong><\/p>\n
The Levantine palm tree,
\nthe walking column.
\nThe palm tree\u2026
\nThe Levantine palm tree,
\nthe one that scans the sea,
\nthe Mediterranean era.
\nThe Levantine palm tree,
\nthe one that catches the first
\nbreath of spring,
\nthe first swallow.<\/p>\n
The mistress of landscapes.
\nShe who scratches at the morning stars
\nand wraps the lace
\nof the clouds, like turbans, around her date-palm stilts.
\nThe magnificent censer
\nthat sways alone
\nat the top of the hill,
\nagainst an extraordinary blue\u2026<\/p>\n
The Levantine palm tree!
\nThe one that plucks
\nthe first strand of light
\nfrom the white dawn.
\nThe one that offers sun in grains to the greenish-blue.
\nThe one that throws itself face-first
\nagainst the Sun.
\nThe one that cradles
\nthe archangel of the moon.<\/p>\n
The one climbed by the palm-growers,
\nwho pluck its teardrop-shaped clusters
\namid laughter and songs
\nand goldfinches;
\nthough at times they turn to weeping,
\nlaughter and songs,
\nwhen, shaken by a violent wind,
\nthese whirling trees
\nscatter everything into the heavens:
\nbirds, palm fronds, men, dates.<\/p>\n
The Levantine palm tree,
\nthe first thing the sailor\u2019s eye
\nsees on the seas of the Levant.
\nThe palm tree of Alicante!<\/p>\n
<\/span>Cycle III: First trip to Madrid and publication of “Perito en lunas” (1931\u20131933)<\/span><\/h4>\n
Miguel arrives at Atocha station at dawn on 2 December 1931. Backed by recommendations, he attempts to make his way in Madrid\u2019s literary world. On 15 January 1932, Gim\u00e9nez Caballero published in “El Robinson Literario” a rather offensive first profile of Miguel, which concluded with: \u2018\u2026a charming little shepherd who has fallen this Christmas because of this Madrid birth\u2019. He knocked on many doors, only to have them shut in his face. Even so, he continued to write and to visit the National Library, for which he had secured a pass. It is an example of a titanic effort to overcome adversity. On 20 February 1932, a full-page feature on Miguel by Federico Mart\u00ednez Corbal\u00e1n appeared in the magazine “Estampa”.<\/p>\n
Even so, he fails to secure the long-awaited scholarship from the Alicante Provincial Council and, distressed by his debts to the boarding house, irons his only tie by placing it between the pages of his dictionary, and is forced to spend many nights sleeping rough.<\/p>\n
Finally, after six months of adventures and despondency, Miguel returned to Orihuela on 20 May 1932. His time in Madrid did, however, serve to show him just how out of step his early poetry was.<\/p>\n
It was during this period that he composed \u2018El Silbo de Afirmaci\u00f3n en la Aldea\u2019 (The Whistle of Affirmation in the Village), better known by its opening line \u2018Alto soy de mirar a las Palmeras\u2019 (I am tall for gazing at the palm trees), in the vein of the \u2018beatus ille\u2019, in which he compares life in the city and in the countryside, although it is a poem that does not appear in any book.<\/p>\n
THE WHISTLE OF AFFIRMATION IN THE VILLAGE (Excerpt)<\/strong><\/p>\n
I am tall for gazing at the palm trees,
\ntoo rugged to live amongst the mountains\u2026
\nI found myself small and weak upon the pavements
\nof a splendid city of spiders.
\nTough ravines of staircases,
\nsilent waterfalls of lifts,
\nwhat a sense of emptiness!
\nThey took the place of my flowers,
\nthe breezes of my breezes and my river.
\nI saw the most remarkable part of my being
\ncarried off by the devil, and God absent.
\nI held you in the distance of oblivion,
\nvillage, orchard, fountain
\nwhere I found myself in a moment of carelessness:
\norchard, where I found the best life,
\nvillage, where, in the open air and freely,
\nin a state of peace, I urinated long and at ease.
\nBut I immediately turned
\nmy attention to the pure existences
\nof my retreat, mindful of my own absence,
\nand all their absences
\nfilled my thoughts with light.
\nMy foot wandered without ground\u2014what torment!\u2014
\nwavering on the waxed floors,
\nwith a constant fear, a start,
\nwhich were heightened by the bells, the warnings,
\nthe alarms, the men and the tarmac.
\nStop! Stop! Stop! Stop!
\nOrder! Order! What a haughty
\nimposition of order\u2014a hand,
\na colour, a sound!
\nMy sense of sight,
\nalas, was losing its meaning.
\nBumped into by a thousand breasts, assailed
\nby more than a thousand dangers, temptations,
\nmechanical packs of hounds,
\nI was pursued by lusts and car horns,
\ndesires and trams.
\nSo many lips of theatrical purples,
\nexaggeratedly sinful!
\nSo much vocabulary of glass,
\ndriving the colours to frenzy
\nin a struggle, in a contest
\nof originality and excellence!
\nWhat confusion! A Babel of Babels!
\nGreat city! Great fiend! Great hell!
\nThe world on rails,
\nand its imbalance on a bicycle!<\/p>\n
It took several months for his first book, “Perito en Lunas”\u2014a work in the style of Gongora or the Culteranos\u2014to see the light of day, and it was finally published by the printing house of the Catholic-oriented magazine “La Verdad” in Murcia on 20 January 1933, having borrowed the money to cover the printing costs. The book features a foreword by his friend Ram\u00f3n Sij\u00e9. Despite such high expectations, the book went unnoticed, sold very few copies and did nothing to alleviate the poet\u2019s dire financial situation. According to experts, the poems in this book show clear influences from the “Segunda Antolog\u00eda Po\u00e9tica” (1922) by Juan Ram\u00f3n Jim\u00e9nez [Nobel Prize in Literature, 1956] and from Rub\u00e9n Dar\u00edo. The following poem describes masturbation.<\/p>\n
SEX IN AN INSTANT, 1<\/strong><\/p>\n
To the ticking\u2014albeit muffled\u2014I recall
\nthe dark perpendicular of before,
\nbisector of zero over zero,
\nnow equivalent, and equidistant.
\nIt cries out imperatively for its right,
\nwith more numbers, though few, for a moment;
\nbut her situation, extreme in short,
\nwithout a vertex of love, foams away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/span>Cycle IV: Second trip to Madrid and \u201cEl Rayo que no Cesa\u201d (1934\u201336)<\/span><\/h4>\n
Miguel has written the first two acts of a sacramental play and, with his meagre savings and money from his friends, sets off for Madrid for the second time in March 1934. This time he has better luck and manages to complete his auto-sacramental play “Qui\u00e9n te ha visto y qui\u00e9n te ve y sombra de lo que eras”<\/strong> (“Who Has Seen You and Who Sees You Now, and a Shadow of What You Once Were”), which is published in the Madrid-based Catholic magazine “Cruz y Raya” in July, August and September 1934.<\/p>\n
In 1934, Miguel alternated between stays in Madrid and returns to Orihuela. In June 1934, his friend Ram\u00f3n Sij\u00e9 began publishing the magazine \u201cEl Gallo Crisis\u201d, which managed to produce six issues up until Easter 1935; all of them featured poems by Miguel offering a profound theological and Eucharistic vision of the countryside.<\/p>\n
During one of his stays, he met Josefina Manresa, with whom he formalised their engagement on 27 September 1934. Throughout 1934, he wrote love sonnets to his beloved, which would later form \u201cEl Silbo Vulnerado\u201d , which Miguel had planned to publish in 1934 but did not. Many of these poems serve as a prelude and source of inspiration for the sonnets that would make up \u201cRayo que no cesa\u201d. One example is \u201cTe me mueres de casta y de sencilla\u201d, poem 22 from El Silbo Vulnerado; and, slightly revised, poem 11 of “Rayo”, inspired by Josefina Manresa.<\/p>\n
YOU DIE FOR ME, SO CHASTE AND SIMPLE<\/strong><\/p>\n
You die for me, so chaste and simple\u2026
\nI am convinced, my love, I confess
\nthat, as a daring kidnapper of a kiss,
\nI plucked the flower from your cheek.
\nI plucked the flower from your cheek,
\nand since that glory, that event,
\nyour cheek, burdened by scruples and weight,
\nfalls away, withered and yellow.
\nThe spectre of that criminal kiss
\nhaunts your cheekbone,
\never more evident, dark and large.
\nAnd sleepless you lie, jealously,
\nwatching over my mouth\u2014how carefully!
\nlest it become corrupt and run wild.<\/p>\n
He made further trips to Madrid and secured work, first as a contributor to the Misiones Pedag\u00f3gicas and, later, as secretary and editor of the encyclopaedia “Los toros”, whose director and chief editor, Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda de Coss\u00edo, was preparing it for Espasa-Calpe. From then on, Coss\u00edo would be Miguel\u2019s most fervent supporter.<\/p>\n
He met Vicente Aleixandre and became friends with him and with Pablo Neruda, who had just arrived in Madrid in 1934 as a diplomat; this marked the beginning of his brief period within Surrealism, characterised by torrential vigour and telluric inspiration.<\/p>\n
On 24 January 1936, the first copies of “El Rayo que no cesa<\/strong>” were printed. This collection of poems has a curious structure: a long poem, thirteen sonnets, a long poem, thirteen sonnets, an elegy and a final sonnet. In this book, Miguel has transformed himself into a passionate bard of profane love, with unbridled sexuality and eroticism.<\/p>\n
In 1935, he had ended his relationship with Josefina Manresa and had been involved in a torrid affair with the very liberated painter Maruja Mallo. He would dedicate the following sonnet to her, sonnet 23 from “El Rayo que no cesa”:<\/p>\n
LIKE THE BULL I WAS BORN FOR MOURNING<\/strong><\/p>\n
Like the bull I was born for mourning
\nand pain; like the bull I am branded
\nby a hellish iron on my flank
\nand, as a man, in my groin with a fruit.
\nLike the bull, my boundless heart
\nseems to him but a mere speck,
\nand from the face of the lover\u2019s kiss,
\nlike the bull, I vie for your love.
\nLike the bull, I grow through my punishment,
\nmy heart is bathed in my tongue
\nand I bear a resounding gale around my neck.
\nLike the bull, I follow you and pursue you,
\nand you leave my desire upon a sword,
\nlike the mocked bull, like the bull.<\/p>\n
In December 1935, his lifelong and dear friend, Ram\u00f3n Sij\u00e9, had died<\/strong>, and Miguel dedicated his extraordinary \u2018Elegy<\/strong>\u2019 to him. This \u2018Elegy\u2019 is considered one of the masterpieces of Spanish literature<\/strong> and one of the greatest achievements of Hernandine poetry; an elegy which, at the time, elicited the rare praise of Juan Ram\u00f3n Jim\u00e9nez in a column for the newspaper “El Sol”; and the acclaim of Ortega y Gasset and Mara\u00f1\u00f3n, amongst others.<\/p>\n
POEM: ELEGY TO RAM\u00d3N SIJ\u00c9<\/strong><\/p>\n
(In Orihuela, his town and mine, Ram\u00f3n Sij\u00e9, whom I loved so dearly, has died
\nas suddenly as a bolt of lightning.)<\/p>\n
I wish to be, weeping, the gardener
\nof the earth you occupy and fertilise,
\ncompanion of the soul, gone so soon.<\/p>\n
Nourishing rains, seashells,
\nand organs\u2014my pain without instruments\u2014
\nto the despondent poppies
\nI shall give your heart as sustenance.<\/p>\n
So much pain gathers in my side,
\nthat, because it aches, even my breath hurts.
\nA hard slap, an icy blow,
\nan invisible, murderous axe-blow,
\na brutal shove has brought you down.<\/p>\n
There is no expanse greater than my wound;
\nI weep for my misfortune and all its aspects,
\nand I feel your death more keenly than my own life.<\/p>\n
I walk upon the stubble of the dead,
\nand without anyone\u2019s warmth or comfort I go
\nfrom my heart to my affairs.<\/p>\n
Early did death take flight,
\nearly did the dawn break,
\nearly is it rolling across the ground.<\/p>\n
I do not forgive death in love,
\nI do not forgive inattentive life,
\nI do not forgive the earth nor nothingness.<\/p>\n
In my hands I raise a storm
\nof stones, lightning and shrill axes,
\nthirsty for catastrophes and hungry.<\/p>\n
I want to dig into the earth with my teeth,
\nI want to tear the earth apart piece by piece
\nwith dry, hot bites.<\/p>\n
I want to gaze into the earth until I find you
\nand kiss your noble skull
\nand remove your gag and bring you back.<\/p>\n
You will return to my orchard and my fig tree,
\nthrough the lofty scaffolding of the flowers
\nyour beekeeper\u2019s soul will flit
\nwith angelic wax and craftsmanship.<\/p>\n
You will return to the cooing by the trellises
\nof the lovers, the farm labourers.
\nYou will brighten the shadow of my brows
\nand your blood will flow to either side,
\nas your bride and the bees vie for it.<\/p>\n
Your heart, now withered velvet,
\ncalls out to a field of frothy almonds,
\nmy greedy voice of a lover.<\/p>\n
To the winged souls of the roses
\nof the creamy almond tree I call upon you,
\nfor we have many things to discuss,
\ncompanion of the soul, companion.<\/p>\n
In February 1936, he wrote again to Josefina\u2019s father, asking him to resume his relationship with his daughter.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Cycle V: The Poet in the Civil War (1936\u20131939)<\/span><\/h4>\n
When the Civil War broke out on 18 July 1936, Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez enlisted in the Republican cause. Hern\u00e1ndez served in the 5th Regiment and was transferred to other units on the fronts of the Battle of Teruel, in Andalusia and in Extremadura. His poetry at this time took on a more social tone and clearly expressed a political commitment to the poorest and most dispossessed.<\/p>\n
In the midst of the war, he managed to escape briefly to Orihuela to marry Josefina Manresa on 9 March 1937. A few days later, he had to return to the front in Ja\u00e9n.<\/p>\n
In the summer of 1937, he attended the Second International Congress of Anti-Fascist Writers held in Madrid and Valencia, and later, in August, he travelled to the Soviet Union on behalf of the Republican government, from where he returned in October to write the play “Pastor de la muerte”.<\/strong><\/p>\n
In September 1937, he published a new book, “Viento del Pueblo<\/strong>“, dedicated to Vicente Aleixandre. It is a vibrant work, stripped of rhetorical artifice and imbued with extraordinary power. Of his poems, the following stand out here:<\/p>\n
WINDS OF THE PEOPLE CARRY ME<\/strong><\/p>\n
Winds of the people carry me,
\nwinds of the people drag me along,
\nthey scatter my heart
\nand buffet my throat.
\nThe oxen bow their heads,
\nhelplessly meek,
\nin the face of punishment:
\nthe lions raise theirs
\nand at the same time mete out punishment
\nwith their roaring paws.
\nI do not belong to a people of oxen,
\nfor I am of a people who possess
\nlion\u2019s lairs,
\neagle\u2019s gorges
\nand mountain ranges of bulls
\nwith pride in their horns.
\nOxen never thrived
\non the moors of Spain.
\nWho spoke of placing a yoke
\nupon the neck of this race?
\nWho has ever placed upon the hurricane
\neither yokes or shackles,
\nnor who has held the lightning
\nprisoner in a cage?
\nAsturians of bravery,
\nBasques of armoured stone,
\nValencians of joy
\nand Castilians of soul,
\ncarved like the earth
\nand graceful as wings;
\nAndalusians of lightning,
\nborn amidst guitars
\nand forged in the torrential
\nanvils of tears;
\nExtremadurans of rye,
\nGalicians of rain and calm,
\nCatalans of steadfastness,
\nAragonese of noble stock,
\nMurcians of dynamite
\nfruitfully propagated,
\nLeonese, Navarrese, masters
\nof hunger, sweat and the axe,
\nkings of the mines,
\nlords of the fields,
\nmen who, amongst the roots,
\nlike gallant roots,
\ngo from life to death,
\ngo from nothing to nothing:
\nyokes they wish to place upon you
\npeople of the weeds,
\nyokes that you must leave
\nbroken upon their backs.
\nTwilight of the oxen
\ndawn is breaking.
\nThe oxen die clad
\nin humility and the scent of the stable;
\nthe eagles, the lions
\nand the bulls in arrogance,
\nand behind them, the sky
\nis neither clouded nor ends.
\nThe agony of the oxen
\nhas a small face,
\nthat of the male animal
\nenlarges all creation.
\nIf I die, let me die
\nwith my head held high.
\nDead and twenty times dead,
\nmy mouth pressed against the grass,
\nI shall have my teeth clenched
\nand my beard resolute.
\nSinging, I await death,
\nfor there are nightingales that sing
\nabove the rifles
\nand in the midst of battles.<\/p>\n
THE YOUNG OX-HERDER<\/strong><\/p>\n
Born for the yoke,
\nmore humiliated than beautiful,
\nhis neck pursued
\nby the yoke for his neck.<\/p>\n
He is born, like a tool,
\ndestined for blows,
\nfrom a discontented land
\nand an insatiable plough.<\/p>\n
Amidst the pure, living manure
\nof cows, he brings to life
\na soul the colour of an olive tree,
\nalready old and calloused.<\/p>\n
He begins to live, and begins
\nto die from one end to the other
\nlifting the crust
\nof his mother\u2019s soil with the yoke.<\/p>\n
He begins to feel, and feels
\nlife as a war,
\nand to labour wearily
\nupon the bones of the earth.<\/p>\n
He knows not how to count his years,
\nyet he already knows that sweat
\nis a solemn crown
\nof salt for the labourer.<\/p>\n
He works, and whilst he works
\nwith manly seriousness,
\nhe anoints himself with rain and adorns himself
\nwith the flesh of the graveyard.<\/p>\n
By the force of blows, strong,
\nand by the force of the sun, burnished,
\nwith a deathly ambition
\nhe tears apart a hard-won loaf.<\/p>\n
Each new day is
\nmore root, less creature,
\nwho hears beneath his feet
\nthe voice of the grave.<\/p>\n
And like a root he sinks
\nslowly into the earth
\nso that the earth may flood
\nhis brow with peace and bread.<\/p>\n
This hungry child pains me
\nlike a mighty thorn,
\nand his ashen existence
\nhardens my oak-like soul.<\/p>\n
I see him ploughing the stubble,
\nand devouring a crust of bread,
\nand declaring with his eyes
\nwhy he is flesh for the yoke.<\/p>\n
His plough pierces my chest,
\nand his life chokes my throat,
\nand I suffer as I watch the fallow land
\nstretching so vast beneath his feet.<\/p>\n
Who will save this little lad
\nsmaller than a grain of oats?
\nFrom where shall the hammer come
\nto break this chain?<\/p>\n
Let it spring from the hearts
\nof day labourers,
\nwho, before becoming men, are
\nand have been child labourers.<\/p>\n
OLIVE GROWERS
\nAndalusians of Ja\u00e9n,
\nproud olive growers,
\ntell me from the depths of your soul: who,
\nwho planted the olive trees?
\nThey were not planted by nothingness,
\nnor by money, nor by the master,
\nbut by the silent earth,
\nlabour and sweat.
\nUnited with pure water
\nand united with the planets,
\nthe three gave rise to the beauty
\nof the gnarled trunks.
\nRise up, grey-haired olive tree,
\nthey said at the foot of the wind.
\nAnd the olive tree raised a hand
\npowerful as its very foundations.
\nAndalusians of Ja\u00e9n,
\nproud olive-growers,
\ntell me from the depths of your soul: who
\nnurtured the olive trees?
\nYour blood, your life,
\nnot that of the exploiter
\nwho grew rich from the generous
\nwound of sweat.
\nNot that of the landowner
\nwho buried you in poverty,
\nwho trampled upon your foreheads,
\nwho crushed your heads.
\nTrees that your toil
\nconsecrated at the height of the day
\nwere the beginning of a loaf of bread
\nthat only the other ate.
\nHow many centuries of olive-picking,
\nfeet and hands in bondage,
\nsunrise to sunset and moonrise to moonset,
\nweigh upon your bones!
\nPeople of Ja\u00e9n in Andalusia,
\nproud olive-growers,
\nmy soul asks: whose,
\nwhose are these olive trees?
\nJa\u00e9n, rise up proudly
\nupon your moonlit stones,
\ndo not become a slave
\nwith all your olive groves.
\nWithin the clarity
\nof the oil and its aromas,
\nyour freedom is signalled
\nby the freedom of your hills.<\/p>\n
SONG OF THE SOLDIER-HUSBAND<\/strong><\/p>\n
I have filled your womb with love and seed,
\nI have prolonged the echo of blood to which I respond
\nand I wait by the furrow as the plough waits:
\nI have reached the very depths.<\/p>\n
Dark-haired one of lofty towers, bright light and lofty eyes,
\nwife of my flesh, great draught of my life,
\nyour wild breasts grow towards me, leaping
\nlike a fawn in the womb.<\/p>\n
It already seems to me that you are a delicate crystal,
\nI fear you might shatter at the slightest stumble,
\nand to strengthen your veins with my soldier\u2019s skin
\nI would be like the cherry tree.<\/p>\n
Mirror of my flesh, sustenance of my wings,
\nI give you life in the death they give me and which I do not take.
\nWoman, woman, I love you whilst surrounded by bullets,
\nlonging for the lead.<\/p>\n
Upon the ferocious coffins lying in wait,
\nupon the very dead, without remedy and without a grave,
\nI love you, and I would kiss you with all my heart
\neven in the dust, my wife.<\/p>\n
When, by the battlefields, my brow thinks of you
\n\u2014a brow that neither cools nor soothes your image\u2014
\nyou draw near to me like an immense mouth
\nwith hungry teeth.<\/p>\n
Write to me in the thick of the fighting; feel me in the trench:
\nhere, with my rifle, I summon and hold fast to your name.
\nAnd I defend your poor womb that awaits me,
\nand I defend your child.<\/p>\n
Our son will be born with his fist clenched,
\nwrapped in a clamour of victory and guitars,
\nand I shall lay down my soldier\u2019s life at your door
\nwithout fangs or claws. ,<\/p>\n
One must kill to go on living.
\nOne day I shall go to the shadow of your distant hair.
\nAnd I shall sleep on the sheet of starch and din
\nsewn by your hand.<\/p>\n
Your relentless legs stride straight towards childbirth,
\nand your relentless mouth with its indomitable lips,
\nand before my solitude of explosions and breaches,
\nyou tread a path of relentless kisses.<\/p>\n
For the child there will be the peace I am forging.
\nAnd at last, in an ocean of irretrievable bones,
\nyour heart and mine will be shipwrecked, leaving
\na woman and a man worn out by kisses.<\/p>\n
In December 1937, whilst Miguel was on the Teruel front, their first son, Manuel Ram\u00f3n, was born; he died at ten months old, and to him is dedicated the poem \u2018Son of Light and Shadow\u2019. As the war drew to a close, in January 1939, his second son, Manuel Miguel, was born.<\/p>\n
<\/span>Cycle VI: Persecution, imprisonment and death (1939\u20131942)<\/strong><\/span><\/h4>\n
In April 1939, General Francisco Franco declared the war over, and \u2018El hombre acecha\u2019 had just been printed in Valencia, a collection of poems written between 1937 and 1939. This book was dedicated to Pablo Neruda. Whilst still unbound, a Francoist purge commission, chaired by the philologist Joaqu\u00edn de Entrambasaguas, ordered the complete destruction of the print run. However, two copies that were saved made it possible to republish the book in 1981.<\/p>\n
MOTHER SPAIN<\/strong><\/p>\n
Clutching your body as the tree trunk clings to its soil,
\nwith all its roots and all its courage,
\nwho will separate me, tear me away from you,
\nmother?<\/p>\n
Clutching your womb, who will take it from me,
\nif its titanic depths give rise to my flesh?
\nClutching your womb, which is my eternal home,
\nno one!<\/p>\n
Mother: eternal abyss, eternal earth:
\nwomb where all bloods converge and flow into one:
\nwhere all fallen hollows rise again,
\nmother.<\/p>\n
To say \u2018mother\u2019 is to say \u2018earth that has borne me\u2019;
\nit is to say to the dead: \u2018brothers, rise up\u2019;
\nit is to feel in my mouth and hear beneath the ground
\nblood.<\/p>\n
The other mother is a bridge, nothing more, of your rivers.
\nThe other breast is a bubble of your seas.
\nYou are the whole mother with all her infinity,
\nmother.<\/p>\n
Earth: earth on the gallows, and in the soul, and in everything.
\nEarth that I am eating, which in the end will swallow me whole.
\nWith greater strength than before, you will give birth to me once more,
\nmother.<\/p>\n
When I am but a faint imprint upon your body,
\nyou will give birth to me once more with greater strength than before.
\nWhen a child is a child, he lives and dies crying out,
\n\u2018Mother!\u2019<\/p>\n
Brothers: let us defend her besieged womb,
\ntowards which the rooks flock from all sides, for
\nfor the evil wings to fly, there is still
\nair.<\/p>\n
Cast aside, to the shores of your heart,
\nlimited feelings, partial affections.
\nThey are small stories beside her, ever
\ngreat.<\/p>\n
A photograph and a patch of earth,
\na letter and a mountain are sometimes one and the same.
\nToday you are the grass that grows above all else,
\nmother.<\/p>\n
Family of this land that merges us into the light,
\nthe darkest of the dead strive to rise,
\nto merge with us and save the first
\nmother.<\/p>\n
Spain, stoic rock that split in two
\ninto pieces of pain and deep stone to give me life:
\nthey shall not separate me from your lofty depths,
\nmother.<\/p>\n
As well as dying for you, I ask for one thing:
\nthat the wife and son I have, when they pass away,
\nmay go to the corner of your womb where I dwell,
\nmother.<\/p>\n
Once the war was over, a gruelling ordeal began for Miguel.<\/p>\n
His friend Coss\u00edo offered to take the poet in at Tudanca, but he decided to return to Orihuela. As he was in great danger in Orihuela, he decided to go to Seville via C\u00f3rdoba, with the intention of crossing the Portuguese border via Huelva. Salazar\u2019s police handed him over to the Civil Guard. From the prison in Seville, he was transferred to the prison on Calle Torrijos in Madrid (now Calle del Conde de Pe \u00f1alver), from where, thanks to Pablo Neruda\u2019s interventions with a cardinal, he was unexpectedly released without being prosecuted in September 1939.
\nOn his return to Orihuela, he gave Joefina a notebook containing his writings up to that point, the seed of the book “Cancionero y Romancero de Ausencias”. Miguel was denounced and arrested, and spent his first period of imprisonment in the seminary in Orihuela, which had by then been converted into a prison.<\/p>\n
From there he was transferred to the prison in Plaza del Conde de Toreno in Madrid, where he was tried and sentenced to death in March 1940. There he shared a cell with Buero Vallejo, who produced one of the poet\u2019s most famous charcoal portraits. Coss\u00edo and other intellectual friends, including Luis Almarcha Hern\u00e1ndez\u2014a friend from his youth and Vicar General of the Diocese of Orihuela (who later became Bishop of Le\u00f3n in 1944)\u2014interceded on his behalf, and his death sentence was commuted to thirty years\u2019 imprisonment.<\/p>\n
He was transferred to Palencia prison in September 1940 and, in November, to Oca\u00f1a Prison (Toledo). In June 1941, he was moved to the Adult Reformatory in Alicante, where he was finally able to see Josefina and his son again.<\/p>\n
From prison to prison, the poet continued to write. His book “Cancionero y Romancero de Ausencias<\/strong>” contains poems written between 1938 and 1941, whilst “Poemas \u00daltimos<\/strong>” brings together the poems in classical verse also written during that period.<\/p>\n
Among these poems, \u2018Nanas de la Cebolla\u2019 stands out; it was written for his second son when he was eight months old, after receiving a letter from his wife in which she described their hardships and said they were eating nothing but bread and onions. Concha Zardoy described it as \u2018the most tragic lullaby in Spanish poetry\u2019.<\/p>\n
ONION’S LULLABY<\/strong><\/p>\n
The onion is frost
\nclosed and poor.
\nFrost of your days
\nand of my nights.
\nHunger and onion,
\nblack ice and frost
\nlarge and round.<\/p>\n
In the cradle of hunger
\nmy child lay.
\nWith onion\u2019s blood
\nhe was nourished.
\nBut your blood,
\nfrosted with sugar,
\nonion and hunger.<\/p>\n
A dark-haired woman
\nset against the moon
\nspills out, thread by thread,
\nover the cradle.
\nLaugh, child,
\nfor I bring you the moon
\nwhen it is needed.<\/p>\n
Lark of my home,
\nlaugh heartily.
\nIt is your laughter in your eyes
\nthat is the light of the world.
\nLaugh so much
\nthat my soul, upon hearing you,
\nmay fill the space.<\/p>\n
Your laughter sets me free,
\ngives me wings.
\nIt takes away my loneliness,
\ntears me from my prison.
\nA mouth that soars,
\na heart that on your lips
\nflashes like lightning.<\/p>\n
Your laughter is the sword
\nmost victorious,
\nconqueror of flowers
\nand larks,
\nrival of the sun.
\nThe future of my bones
\nand of my love.<\/p>\n
Flesh that flutters,
\na sudden flutter of the eyelid,
\nlife as never before
\ncoloured.
\nHow many goldfinches
\nsoar, flutter,
\nfrom your body!<\/p>\n
I awoke from being a child:
\nnever wake up.
\nMy mouth is sad:
\nlaugh always.
\nAlways in the cradle,
\ndefending laughter
\nfeather by feather.<\/p>\n
A being of flight so broad,
\nso expansive,
\nthat your flesh is the sky
\nnewly born.
\nIf only I could
\nsoar back to the origin
\nof your journey!<\/p>\n
In the eighth month you laugh
\nwith five orange blossoms.
\nWith five tiny
\nferocities.
\nWith five teeth
\nlike five jasmine blossoms
\nin their prime.<\/p>\n
The frontier of kisses
\nwill be tomorrow,
\nwhen in your teeth
\nyou feel a weapon.
\nYou feel a fire
\nrunning down your teeth
\nsearching for the centre.<\/p>\n
Fly, child, in the double
\nmoon of the breast:
\nhe, sad as an onion,
\nyou, content.
\nDo not crumble.
\nKnow not what is happening nor
\nwhat is taking place.<\/p>\n
The following poem, which he wrote for his wife, is also particularly poignant:<\/p>\n
EXCEPT YOUR WOMB<\/strong><\/p>\n
Except your womb,
\neverything is confused.
\nExcept your womb,
\neverything is a fleeting
\nfuture, a barren
\npast, murky.
\nExcept your womb,
\neverything is hidden.
\nExcept your womb,
\neverything is uncertain,
\neverything is final,
\ndust without a world.
\nExcept your womb,
\neverything is dark.
\nExcept your womb
\nclear and deep.<\/p>\n
In December 1941, the first symptoms of his illness became apparent, progressing from bronchitis to typhus and pleurisy. On 4 March 1942, he entered into a canonical marriage in the prison infirmary, as Franco\u2019s regime had annulled the validity of civil marriages from the Republic, which was the condition that the vicar, Luis Almarcha, had set in order to help him. Even so, the help [the order to transfer him to the hospital in Alicante] arrived too late, on 17 March, and by then no one was willing to move a body oozing pus from every orifice. Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez died in the infirmary of the Alicante prison<\/strong> at 5.32 am on 28 March 1942<\/strong>, aged just 31.<\/p>\n
Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez was buried in niche number 1,009 at the Nuestra Se\u00f1ora del Remedio cemetery in Alicante on 30 March. His remains now rest in a grave in the same cemetery, alongside those of his wife, Josefina Manresa, and his son. This grave, which is easily identifiable, is frequently visited.<\/p>\n
In a letter dated 3 September 1946, Vicente Aleixandre wrote the following words about Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez to the Canarian poet Juan Maderos:<\/p>\n
\u201cI do not know if you are aware that Miguel was like a brother to me, a younger brother, enthusiastic and deeply close to me, with whom I spent all my time. He had an enormous heart, blindly generous, beating through all his poetry and visible in his eyes, just as in his poetry. The fire of life burned in his soul, and he was understanding of everything. Capable of passion, passionate, capable of that nakedness of the soul,
\nthat throb of the blood which the true poet reaches, and which makes all that is human understood, attaining that effortless generosity which fears nothing because all that is human touches him and nothing can frighten him. That is why there was in him neither childishness nor intransigence. He was a free soul who looked upon mankind with a clear gaze. He was the poet of a tragic fate, who died before he could fulfil his potential as a great artist\u2014one who would have been, and indeed already is, a source of honour for our language.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/span>2.2. HIS LEGACY AFTER HIS DEATH AND TODAY<\/span><\/h3>\n
During the Franco dictatorship, it was not possible to rehabilitate the figure and work of Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez, despite the attempts that were made.<\/p>\n
With the advent of democracy, recognition gradually began to emerge. In 1976, the first secondary school in Spain to bear the name of Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez was established in Alicante; a request to name it thus had already been submitted and rejected in 1974. In 1981, Orihuela Town Council purchased Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s former home and began restoring it in 1985. In July 1994, the Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez Cultural Foundation was established and in 1996 the Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez University was established in Elche.<\/p>\n
It was not until as late as March 2010 that the \u2018Ceremony to Present the Declaration of Reparation and Personal Recognition to the Relatives of Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019 took place in Alicante, as provided for in Law 52\/2007 of 26 December on Historical Memory.<\/p>\n
It was the poet\u2019s daughter-in-law, Luc\u00eda Izquierdo, who held all the copyright to the poet\u2019s works and who brought the poet\u2019s legacy to Elche, the city where she lived. However, a change in the local government and the Popular Party\u2019s rise to power led to disagreements in 2012, and it was Ques in Ja\u00e9n\u2014the birthplace of Josefina Manresa, Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez\u2019s wife\u2014that has ultimately become the home of the poet\u2019s legacy. It is a pity that politics has prevented the poet\u2019s memory from being honoured as one might have wished, and that the family is not part of the Foundation bearing the poet\u2019s name.<\/p>\n
In terms of raising awareness of his life and work, the two-part miniseries on Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez directed by Licardo Larranz for TVE, which premiered on 28 February 2002 and starred Liberto Rabal and Silvia Abascal, is particularly noteworthy. Likewise, it is also worth highlighting the work of singer-songwriter Joan Manuel Serrat, who released his first album of songs by the poet back in 1987 and, in 2010, brought out a second album, the tour for which began in Elche on 23 April.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/span>3. CONCLUSION<\/span><\/h2>\n
In 2010, to mark the 100th anniversary of the poet\u2019s birth, a host of activities took place; and Miguel was re-read and rediscovered.
\nMariano Abad and Jos\u00e9 Antonio Torregrosa, in an \u2018Anthology of 40 Illustrated Poems\u2019 published in 2010 to mark the centenary, call upon us \u2013 and I join them in this \u2013 to lay to rest once and for all the stereotypes into which the figure and work of Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez have been pigeonholed.<\/p>\n
The stereotype of the poet as a \u2018natural being\u2019, with his spontaneity, primitivism and authenticity, echoing clich\u00e9d images of the \u2018noble savage\u2019 or \u2018untrained genius\u2019\u2014stereotypes which Miguel himself cultivated during his lifetime as his own \u2018marketing strategy\u2019\u2014 does not do justice to the truth.<\/p>\n
Miguel maintained a repeated and sustained commitment right up to the end to understanding, embracing and mastering all the literary conventions that preceded his era and were predominant in his time; consequently, his aesthetic trajectory does indeed have a cultural character. As Abad and Torregrosa rightly say, \u2018if there is one constant to be highlighted in his biography, it is his sustained commitment to uniting life and literature\u2019.<\/p>\n
My final hope, therefore, is that these stereotypes will be laid to rest and that Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez will come to be appreciated in the full breadth of his commendable struggle for creative self-improvement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A lecture I gave at the CSM in London in 2010 on the life and work of the poet Miguel Hern\u00e1ndez<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26301,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[196,198],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-moncreativity","category-monhomages"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26563"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26563\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26614,"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26563\/revisions\/26614"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mongonzalez.es\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}