Gabriel Celaya (full name: Rafael Gabriel Juan Múgica Celaya Leceta; March 18, 1911 in
Hernani, Gipuzkoa
Hernani is a town and municipality located in the province of Gipuzkoa, Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. The town sits on the left bank of the Urumea river. It is located at a distance of 9.2 km from San Sebastián. The municipality of Her ...
– April 18, 1991 in
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
) was a Spanish poet. Gabriel settled in Madrid and studied engineering, working for a time as a Manager in his family's business.
Gabriel met
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 ...
,
José Moreno Villa
José Moreno Villa (16 February 1887, Málaga – 25 April 1955, México) was a Spanish poet and member of the Generation of '27. He was a man of many talents: narrator, essayist, literary critic, artist, painter, columnist, researcher, ar ...
and other intellectuals who inspired him towards writing around 1927-1935, after which he devoted his writing entirely to poetry. In 1946 he founded the collection of the poems "Norte" with its inseparable
Amparo Gastón and since then, he abandoned his engineering profession and his family's business.
The poetry collection "Norte" was intended to bridge between the gap of the poetry of the generation of 1927, the exile and Europe.
In 1946, he published the prose book "Tentativas" in which he signed as Gabriel Celaya for the first time. This is the first stage of
existentialist
Existentialism ( ) is a form of philosophical inquiry that explores the problem of human existence and centers on human thinking, feeling, and acting. Existentialist thinkers frequently explore issues related to the meaning, purpose, and value ...
character.
Along with
Eugenio de Nora
Eugenio is an Italian and Spanish masculine given name deriving from the Greek language, Greek 'wiktionary:Eugene, Eugene'. The name is Eugénio in Portuguese and Eugênio in Brazilian Portuguese.
The name's translated literal meaning is well born ...
and
Blas de Otero
Blas de Otero (15 March 191629 June 1979) was a Spanish people, Spanish poet, associated with the Social poetry movementDebicki, Andrew P''Spanish Poetry of the Twentieth Century: Modernity and Beyond'', p. 74.University Press of Kentucky, 1994. ...
, he supported the idea of a non-elitist poetry in the service of the majority, "to transform the world".
In 1956, he won the Critics Award for his book "De claro en claro".
When this model of social poetry was in crisis, Celaya returned to his poetic origins. He published 'La linterna sorda' ('The lantern deaf') and reedited poems belonging prior to 1936. He also tested the
experimentalism
Experimentalism is the philosophical belief that the way to truth is through experiments and empiricism. It is also associated with instrumentalism, the belief that truth should be evaluated based upon its demonstrated usefulness. Experimentalism ...
and concrete poetry 'Campos Semánticos'('semantic fields') (1971).
Between 1977 and 1980 their '' Obras Completas '' were published in five volumes.
In 1986 he won a national prize for Spanish literature by the Ministry of Culture, the same year when he published “Open world”.
In short, the work of Celaya is a great synthesis of almost all the concerns and styles of Spanish poetry of 20th century.
Celaya died on April 18, 1991 in Madrid and his remains were scattered in his native
Hernani.
Works
;Poetry
*''Marea del silencio'', 1935
:*''La soledad cerrada'', 1947
:*''Movimientos elementales'', 1947
:*''Tranquilamente hablando'', 1947 (firmado como Juan de Leceta)
:*''Objetos poéticos'', 1948
:*''El principio sin fín'', 1949
:*''Se parece al amor'', 1949
:*''Las cosas como son'', 1949
:*''Deriva, Alicante'', 1950
:*''Las cartas boca arriba'', 1951
:*''Lo demás es silencio'', 1952
:*''Paz y concierto'', 1953
:*''Ciento volando'' (con Amparo Gastón), 1953
:*''Vía muerta'', 1954
:*''La poesía es un arma cargada de futuro'', 1954
:*''Cantos iberos'', 1955
:*''Coser y cantar'' (con Amparo Gastón), 1955
:*''De claro en claro'', 1956
:*''Entreacto'', 1957
:*''Las resistencias del diamante'', 1957
:*''Música celestial'' (con Amparo Gastón), 1958
:*''Cantata en Aleixandre'', 1959
:*''El corazón en su sitio'', 1959
:*''Para vosotros dos'', 1960
:*''Poesía urgente'', 1960
:*''La buena vida'', 1961
:*''Los poemas de Juan de Leceta'', 1961
:*''Rapsodia eúskara'', 1961
:*''Episodios nacionales'', 1962
:*''Mazorcas'', 1962
:*''Versos de otoño'', 1963
:*''Dos cantatas'', 1963
:*''La linterna sorda'', 1964
:*''Baladas y decires vascos'', 1965
:*''Lo que faltaba'', 1967
:*''Poemas de Rafael Múgica'', 1967
:*''Los espejos transparentes'', 1968
:*''Canto en lo mío'', 1968
:*''Poesías completas'', 1969
:*''Operaciones poéticas'', 1971
:*''Campos semánticos'', 1971
:*''Dirección prohibida'', 1973
:*''Función de Uno'', 1973
:*''El derecho y el revés'', 1973
:*''La hija de Arbigorriya'', 1975
:*''Buenos días, buenas noches'', 1978
:*''Parte de guerra'', 1977
:*''Poesías completas (Tomo I-VI)'', 1977-80
:*''Iberia sumergida'', 1978
:*''Poemas órficos'', 1981
:*''Penúltimos poemas'', 1982
:*''Cantos y mitos'', 1984
:*''Trilogía vasca'', 1984
:*''El mundo abierto'', 1986
:*''Orígenes / Hastapenak'', 1990
:*''Poesías completas'', 2001-04
;Essays
:*''El arte como lenguaje'', 1951
:*''Poesía y verdad'', 1959
:*''Juan Manuel Caneja'', 1959
:*''Exploración de la poesía'', 1964
:*''Castilla, a cultural reader'' (con Phyllis Turnbull), 1960
:*''Inquisición de la poesía'', 1972
:*''La voz de los niños'', 1972
:*''Bécquer'', 1972
:*''Los espacios de Chillida'', 1974
:*''Lo que faltaba de Gabriel Celaya'', 1984
:*''Reflexiones sobre mi poesía'', 1987
:*''Ensayos literarios'', 2009
;Prose
:*''Taradez'', 4003
:*''Tentativas'', 1946
:*''Lázaro calla'', 1949
:*''Penúltimas tentativas'', 1960
:*''Lo uno y lo otro'', 1962
:*''Los buenos negocios'', 1965
:*''Memorias inmemoriales'', 1980
;Drama
:*''El relevo'', 1963
:*''Ritos y farsas. Obra teatral completa'', 1985
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Celaya, Gabriel
1911 births
1991 deaths
Spanish poets
Spanish male poets