Ernestina de Champourcín Morán de Loredo (10 July 1905 in

Vitoria-Gasteiz Vitoria-Gasteiz (; ), also alternatively spelled as Vittoria in old English-language sources, is the seat of government and the capital city of the Basque Country and of the province of Álava in northern Spain. It holds the autonomous community' ...

– 27 March 1999 in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

) was a Spanish poet. She is most associated with the

Generation of '27 The Generation of '27 ( es, Generación del 27) was an influential group of poets that arose in Spanish literary circles between 1923 and 1927, essentially out of a shared desire to experience and work with avant-garde forms of art and poetry. ...

Early life

Ernestina Michels de Champourcín Morán de Loredo, was born into a Catholic and traditionalist family, which offered her a thorough education (she was taught a range of different languages) as part of an aristocratic and cultured family atmosphere. Her father was a lawyer of monarchical ideas, and despite his liberal-conservative inclination, Antonio Michels de Champourcín possessed the title of baron of Champourcín, a title which pointed to his paternal family's origin in Provence. Ernestina's mother, Ernestina Morán de Loredo Castellanos, was born in Montevideo, being the only daughter of a military man, of Asturian descent, with whom she often traveled to Europe. Around the age of 10, Champourcín moved, together with the rest of the family, to Madrid, where she was enrolled in the College of the Sacred Heart, received private tuition, and was examined as a free high school student. at the Instituto Cardenal Cisneros. Her desire to study at University was truncated due in part to her father's opposition, despite her mother's support. Her mother was willing to accompany her to classes, to comply with the existing standard for underage women. Champourcín's knowledge of French and English, and her creativity, led her to start writing poetry in French from a very young age. Later, she would use this knowledge of languages to work as a translator for the Mexican publishing house

Fondo de Cultura Económica Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE or simply "Fondo") is a Spanish language, non-profit publishing group, partly funded by the Mexican government. It is based in Mexico but it has subsidiaries throughout the Spanish-speaking world. It was founded in ...

, for about fifteen years (during which she stopped publishing poetry), even though her role as a translator is less well known in literary circles Her love of reading and the cultured family atmosphere brought her into contact with the greats of universal literature from a very young age, and she grew up with the books of

Victor Hugo Victor-Marie Hugo (; 26 February 1802 – 22 May 1885) was a French Romantic writer and politician. During a literary career that spanned more than sixty years, he wrote in a variety of genres and forms. He is considered to be one of the great ...

Alphonse de Lamartine Alphonse Marie Louis de Prat de Lamartine (; 21 October 179028 February 1869), was a French author, poet, and statesman who was instrumental in the foundation of the Second Republic and the continuation of the Tricolore as the flag of France. ...

, Vigny,

Maurice Maeterlinck Maurice Polydore Marie Bernard Maeterlinck (29 August 1862 – 6 May 1949), also known as Count (or Comte) Maeterlinck from 1932, was a Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist who was Flemish but wrote in French. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in ...

Paul Verlaine Paul-Marie Verlaine (; ; 30 March 1844 – 8 January 1896) was a French poet associated with the Symbolist movement and the Decadent movement. He is considered one of the greatest representatives of the '' fin de siècle'' in international and ...

and the great Castilian mystics,

John of the Cross John of the Cross, OCD ( es, link=no, Juan de la Cruz; la, Ioannes a Cruce; born Juan de Yepes y Álvarez; 24 June 1542 – 14 December 1591) was a Spanish Catholic priest, mystic, and a Carmelite friar of converso origin. He is a major figu ...

and Saint

Teresa of Jesus Teresa (also Theresa, Therese; french: Thérèse) is a feminine given name. It originates in the Iberian Peninsula in late antiquity. Its derivation is uncertain, it may be derived from Classical Greek, Greek θερίζω (''therízō'') " ...

. Later, she read Valle-Inclán,

Rubén Darío Félix Rubén García Sarmiento (January 18, 1867 – February 6, 1916), known as Rubén Darío ( , ), was a Nicaraguan poet who initiated the Spanish-language literary movement known as ''modernismo'' (modernism) that flourished at the end of ...

, Concha Espina,

Amado Nervo Amado Nervo (August 27, 1870 – May 24, 1919) also known as Juan Crisóstomo Ruiz de Nervo, was a Mexican poet, journalist and educator. He also acted as Mexican Ambassador to Argentina and Uruguay. His poetry was known for its use of metaphor a ...

and, above all,

Juan Ramón Jiménez Juan Ramón Jiménez Mantecón (; 23 December 1881 – 29 May 1958) was a Spanish poet, a prolific writer who received the 1956 Nobel Prize in Literature "for his lyrical poetry, which in the Spanish language constitutes an example of high ...

. The figure of Juan Ramón Jiménez is of vital importance in the development of Ernestina as a poet, and in fact, she always considered him as her teacher. Like the vast majority of writers of her generation, the first witnesses of her poetic work are loose poems published from 1923 in various magazines of the time, such as ''Manantial'', ''Cartagena Ilustrada'' o ''La Libertad''. In 1926, Maria de Maeztu and Concha Méndez founded the Lyceum Club Femenino, with a view to bringing women together and encouraging unity, so that they could help each other in the struggle to find a role in the cultural and social affairs of their time. This project interested Ernestina, who became involved in it, taking care of everything related to literature. In the same year, Champourcín published her work '' En silencio '' in Madrid and sent a copy to Juan Ramón, awaiting the poet's judgment and critique of her first work. Even though she did not receive an answer, she came across Jiménez and his wife – Zenobia Camprubí – in the Farm of San Ildefonso. From this chance encounter a friendship arose between the two that led her to consider him her mentor, just as was the case, a little later on, with their other peers. Through her acquaintance with him she also got in touch with some of the members of the

Rafael Alberti Rafael Alberti Merello (16 December 1902 – 28 October 1999) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. He is considered one of the greatest literary figures of the so-called ''Silver Age'' of Spanish Literature, and he won numerou ...

Federico García Lorca Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), known as Federico García Lorca ( ), was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director. García Lorca achieved international recognition as an emblemat ...

Luis Cernuda Luis Cernuda Bidón (September 21, 1902 – November 5, 1963) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. During the Spanish Civil War, in early 1938, he went to the UK to deliver some lectures and this became the start of an exile t ...

Jorge Guillén Jorge Guillén Álvarez (; 18 January 18936 February 1984) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27, a university teacher, a scholar and a literary critic. In 1957-1958, he delivered the Charles Eliot Norton lectures at Harvard Un ...

Pedro Salinas Pedro Salinas y Serrano (27 November 1891 – 4 December 1951) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27, as well as a university teacher, scholar and literary critic. In 1937, he delivered the Turnbull lectures at Johns Hopkins ...

and

Vicente Aleixandre Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo (; 26 April 1898 – 14 December 1984) was a Spanish poet who was born in Seville. Aleixandre received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1977 "for a creative poetic writing which illuminates ma ...

. In addition, thanks to her mentor, she came into contact with classical and modern English poetry (

Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tuberculos ...

, Shelley,

Blake Blake is a surname which originated from Old English. Its derivation is uncertain; it could come from "blac", a nickname for someone who had dark hair or skin, or from "blaac", a nickname for someone with pale hair or skin. Another theory, presuma ...

Yeats William Butler Yeats (13 June 186528 January 1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and one of the foremost figures of 20th-century literature. He was a driving force behind the Irish Literary Revival and became a pillar of the Irish liter ...

). In 1927, Champourcín began a stage in which she published literary criticism works in newspapers (especially in the '' Heraldo de Madrid '' and '' La Época (Madrid) ''. In these articles published before the

Spanish Civil War The Spanish Civil War ( es, Guerra Civil Española)) or The Revolution ( es, La Revolución, link=no) among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War ( es, Cuarta Guerra Carlista, link=no) among Carlists, and The Rebellion ( es, La Rebelión, link ...

she deals with issues such as the nature of pure poetry and the aesthetics of the "new poetry" that the young people of the generation of '27 were working on. She herself felt integrated into this group, as she shared the same conception of poetry. She published her first books in

– '' En silencio '' (1926), '' Ahora '' (1928), '' La voz en el viento '' (1931), '' Cántico inútil '' (1936) -, which made her well known in the literary world of the capital. An evolution in her work can be discovered from an initial modernism in the shadow of

to a more personal poetry marked by the theme of love wrapped in a rich passion. Perhaps that is why

Gerardo Diego Gerardo Diego Cendoya (October 3, 1896 – July 8, 1987) was a Spanish poet, a member of the Generation of '27. Diego taught language and literature at institutes of learning in Soria, Gijón, Santander and Madrid. He also acted as litera ...

selected her for his '' Anthology of Contemporary Spanish Poetry, '' from 1934. In 1930, while doing activities at the Lyceum Club Femenino, alongside other intellectuals of the

Second Spanish Republic The Spanish Republic (), commonly known as the Second Spanish Republic (), was the form of government in Spain from 1931 to 1939. The Republic was proclaimed on 14 April 1931, after the deposition of King Alfonso XIII, and was dissolved on 1 ...

, she met

Juan José Domenchina Juan José Domenchina Moreu (18 May 1898 – 27 October 1959) was a Spanish poet and literary critic from the "Generation of '27". Life Juan José Domenchina was born in Madrid in 1898. He trained as a teacher but never taught. His early poetry ...

, poet and personal secretary of

Manuel Azaña Manuel Azaña Díaz (; 10 January 1880 – 3 November 1940) was a Spanish politician who served as Prime Minister of the Second Spanish Republic (1931–1933 and 1936), organizer of the Popular Front in 1935 and the last President of the Repu ...

, whom she married on 6 November 1936.

The Civil War and exile

Shortly before the civil war broke out, Champourcín published what would be her only novel: '' La casa de enfrente '' (after this she only wrote excerpts for the unfinished novel '' Mientras allí se muere'', in which she narrates her experiences in her work as a nurse during the civil war). The novel was eclipsed by political events that took place after the beginning of the civil war. However, this work represents an important milestone in the literature written by women, as the author uses a narrator-protagonist to provide a fine analysis of the upbringing, education and socialization of bourgeois girls in the first decades of the 20th century. This work allows us to consider Ernestina de Champourcín as a moderately feminist author. During the

, Juan Ramón and his wife, Zenobia Camprubí, concerned about orphaned or abandoned children, founded a kind of committee called the "Junta de Protección de Menores". Ernestina de Champourcín joined as a nurse, but due to problems with some militiamen she had to leave and enter the hospital run by Lola Azaña as a nurse's assistant. One of the consequences of her husband's work as Azaña's political secretary was that the couple had no choice but to leave

, embarking on a journey that took them to

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...

, Barcelona and France, where they were in

Toulouse Toulouse ( , ; oc, Tolosa ) is the prefecture of the French department of Haute-Garonne and of the larger region of Occitania. The city is on the banks of the River Garonne, from the Mediterranean Sea, from the Atlantic Ocean and from Pa ...

and Paris, until, finally, 1939, they were invited to Mexico by the diplomat and writer Alfonso Reyes, who was the founder and director of the Casa de España in Mexico. This country then became the definitive site of her exile. Although at first Champourcín wrote numerous verses for magazines such as '' Romance '' and '' Rueca '', her creative activity was reduced due to her economics needs. During this time she worked as a translator for the Mexican publishing house

and an interpreter for the "Association of Technical Staff of International Conferences". However, her stay in Mexico was eventually to be one of her most fruitful stages, and she published '' Presencia a oscuras '' (1952), '' Cárcel de los sentidos '' (1960) and '' El nombre que me diste '' (1960) during this period. Her mentor, Juan Ramón Jiménez, worked as a cultural attaché at the Spanish embassy in the United States, and other members of the group of 27 also went into exile to America, such as was the case of

Emilio Prados Emilio Prados (4 March 1899 - 24 April 1962) was a Spanish poet and editor, a member of the Generation of '27. Life Born in the Andalusian city of Málaga in 1899, Prados was offered a place at Madrid's famous Residencia de estudiantes in 1914 ...

and Luis Cernuda. During all the changes, their life was not easy. The couple had no children, and they endured their separation from their roots very differently. Ernestina's husband,

, did not adapt to her new life as an exile, and died prematurely in 1959; she, for her part, came to have strong feelings of union with this new "homeland". During this time her work took on a hitherto unexplored mysticism, and in 1952 she asked to join Opus Dei. During this time she wrote ''Hai-kais espirituales'' (1967), ''Cartas cerradas'' (1968) and ''Poemas del ser y del estar'' (1972).

Return from exile

In 1972, Champourcín returned to Spain. The return was not easy and she had to go through a new period of adaptation to her own country, an experience that gave rise to feelings that she reflected in works such as '' Primer exilio '' (1978). Feelings of loneliness and old age and an invasion of memories of the places she had been in and the people she had lived with flooded each of her later poems: '' La pared transparente '' (1984), ''Huyeron todas las islas'' (1988), ''Los encuentros frustrados'' (1991), ''Del vacío y sus dones'' (1993) and ''Presencia del pasado'' (1996). The work entitled '' La ardilla y la rosa (Juan Ramón en mi memoria) '' (1981) is an annotated selection of her correspondence with Zenobia Camprubí, published by the Zenobia-Juan Ramón Jiménez Foundation as '' Los libros de Fausto ''. Zenobia, for her part, published a small and revealing book entitled '' Vivir con Juan Ramón '', which condenses pages from her "Diario" from 1916 and its text ''Juan Ramón y yo''.

Death and legacy

Champourcin died in Madrid on 27 March 1999. Her personal archive is stored in the Archivo General of the

University of Navarra , image = UNAV.svg , latin_name = Universitas Studiorum Navarrensis , established = 17 October 1952 , type = Private, Roman Catholic , chancellor = Fernando Ocáriz Braña , president = María Iraburu Eliz ...

and is open access. According to Emilio Lamo de Espinosa, professor of sociology at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Champourcín's nephew, one of the reasons for the silence about the work of this Spanish writer is her mysticism. For this author, the intimacy of her work and the growing weight of religious poetry meant that she was not taken into account either for her great social work and her commitment to the republican cause or for her activities in favor of the recognition of the rights of women to be treated like their male companions. It could be said that de Champourcín suffered the bad luck of the so-called "'' third ways ''", since she was not clearly on the right or left, as was also the case in very different circumstances, with

Ortega y Gasset Ortega is a Spanish surname. A baptismal record in 1570 records a ''de Ortega'' "from the village of Ortega". There were several villages of this name in Spain. The toponym derives from Latin ''urtica'', meaning "nettle". Some of the Ortega spel ...

, who was rejected by some as an atheist and by others as an elitist, and simultaneously accused of being on the right and being on the left. Emilio Lamo d'Espinosa also considers that Champourcín's position can also be ascribed to her own personality, her independence, and her will to not be typified, categorized, or reified. Even though we can consider Champourcín as the only woman who really was in a situation of equality with the other poets today called the Generation of ‘27, her recognition in Spain was slow in coming. Her admirers had to wait until 1989, when she was awarded the Euskadi Prize for Literature in Castilian in the Poetry modality is granted to her (1989), which was followed by the Progressive Woman Prize, her nomination to the Prince of Asturias Prize for Letters in 1992 and the Medal for Artistic Merit of

Madrid City Council The City Council of Madrid ( es, Ayuntamiento de Madrid) is the top-tier administrative and governing body of the Madrid, the capital and biggest city of Spain. The City Council is composed by three bodies; the Mayor who leads the City Council an ...

in 1997.

Stages in her poetry

First stage: poetry of human love

Ernestina's work is divided into three stages, two of which are very clear. A first stage, that of the poetry of human love, includes the four books published before the civil war: from ''En silencio'' (1926) to ''Cántico inútil'' (1936). In these works the author evolves from origins that could be described as pertaining to late-romanticism and modernism to a “pure poetry” very close to that of

Second stage: poetry of divine love

This stage is separated from the previous stage by a period characterised by a gap in her writing at the beginning of her exile in Mexico, resulting from her need to work to earn a living. After this period of literary silence came the stage of the poetry of divine love (1936–1974) . This begins with Presencia a oscuras (1952), a work that represents a new thematic focus in her poetry. The theme shifts from human love to divine love. During this period, the protagonist of ''El nombre que me diste...'' (1960), ''Cárcel'' (1964), ''Hai-kais espirituales'' (1967), ''Cartas cerradas'' (1968) and ''Poemas del ser y del estar'' (1972), expresses deep religious concerns.

Third stage: poetry of the memory of love

The stage of the poetry of the memory of love (1974–1991) begins with her return from exile, at which time new concerns arose for the author: namely to be able to adapt to her new situation, and to be reunited with places both known and unrecognizable. Her final books, like ''Huyeron todas las islas'' (1988), are a memory and an epilogue of a poetry that is both intimate and transcendent.

Works

* ''En silencio''. Madrid, Espasa-Calpe, 1926. * ''Ahora''. Madrid, Imprenta Brass, 1928. * ''La voz en el viento''. Madrid, Compañía Ibero-Americana de Publicaciones, 1931. * ''Cántico inútil''. Madrid, Aguilar, 1936. * ''Presencia a oscuras''. Madrid, Rialp, 1952. * ''El nombre que me diste...''. México, Finisterre, 1960. * ''Cárcel de los sentidos''. México, Finisterre, 1964. * ''Hai-kais espirituales''. México, Finisterre, 1967. * ''Cartas cerradas''. México, Finisterre, 1968. * ''Poemas del ser y del estar''. Madrid, Alfaguara, 1972. * ''Primer exilio''. Madrid, Rialp, 1978. * ''Poemillas navideños''. México, 1983. * ''La pared transparente''. Madrid, Los Libros de Fausto, 1984. * ''Huyeron todas las islas''. Madrid, Caballo Griego para la Poesía, 1988. * ''Antología poética'', (prologue by Luz María Jiménez Faro). Madrid, Torremozas, 1988. * ''Ernestina de Champourcín''. Málaga, Centro Cultural de la Generación del 27, 1991. * ''Los encuentros frustrados''. Málaga, El Manatí Dorado, 1991. * ''Poesía a través del tiempo''. Barcelona, Anthropos, 1991. * ''Del vacío y sus dones''. Madrid, Torremozas, 1993. * ''Presencia del pasado (1994–1995) ''. Málaga, Poesía circulante, núm. 7, 1996. * ''Cántico inútil'', ''Cartas cerradas'', ''Primer exilio'', ''Huyeron todas las islas''. Málaga, Centro Cultural de la Generación del 27, 1997. * ''Epistolario (1927–1995)'' (2007). Correspondencia con

Carmen Conde Carmen Conde Abellán (15 August 1907 – 8 January 1996) was a Spanish poet, narrative writer and teacher. In 1931 she founded the first Popular University of Cartagena, along with her husband Antonio Oliver Belmás. She was also the first woma ...

. Edición a cargo de Rosa Fernández Urtasun. . * ''Poesía esencial'' (2008). Fundación Banco Santander. Colección Obra Fundamental. . * ''Al fin de la tarde ''

References

Sources

* * * Fernández-Medina, Nicolás.
From Earthly Passions to Spiritual Transcendence: Ernestina de Champourcin's Symbolic Poetry, 1926–1936
" 2005.