Miguel Hernández Gilabert (30 October 1910 – 28 March 1942
[
]) was a 20th-century
Spanish-language poet and playwright 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. ...
and the
Generation of '36 movements. Born and raised in a family of low resources, he was self-taught in what refers to literature, and struggled against an unfavourable environment to build up his intellectual education, such as a father who physically abused him for spending time with books instead of working, and who took him out of school as soon as he finished his primary education. At school, he became a friend of Ramón Sijé, a well-educated boy who lent and recommended books to Hernández, and whose death would inspire his most famous poem, ''Elegy''.
Hernández died of
tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
, imprisoned due to his active participation on the
Republican side of the civil war. His last book, ''
Cancionero y romancero de ausencias'', was published after his death, and is a collection of the poems he wrote in prison, some written in rudimentary pieces of toilet paper, others preserved in letters to his wife, is considered one of the finest pieces of Spanish poetry of the 20th century.
Biography
Hernández was born in
Orihuela
Orihuela (; ca-valencia, Oriola ) is a city and municipality located at the feet of the Sierra de Orihuela mountains in the province of Alicante, Spain. The city of Orihuela had a population of 33,943 inhabitants at the beginning of 2013. The mu ...
,
Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...
, to a poor family and received little formal education; he published his first book of
poetry
Poetry (derived from the Greek ''poiesis'', "making"), also called verse, is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language − such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre − to evoke meanings i ...
at 23, and gained considerable fame before his death. He spent his childhood as a
goatherd and farmhand, and was, for the most part, self-taught, although he did receive basic education from state schools and the
Jesuits
, image = Ihs-logo.svg
, image_size = 175px
, caption = ChristogramOfficial seal of the Jesuits
, abbreviation = SJ
, nickname = Jesuits
, formation =
, founders = ...
.
He was introduced to literature by friend Ramon Sijé. As a youth, Hernández greatly admired the
Spanish Baroque The arts of the Spanish Baroque include:
*Spanish Baroque painting
*Spanish Baroque architecture
** Spanish Baroque ephemeral architecture
*Spanish Baroque literature
**''Culteranismo''
**''Conceptismo''
* Spanish Baroque art
** Bodegón
**Tenebri ...
lyric
poet
A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...
Luis de Góngora
Luis de Góngora y Argote (born Luis de Argote y Góngora; ; 11 July 1561 – 24 May 1627) was a Spanish Baroque lyric poet and a Catholic priest. Góngora and his lifelong rival, Francisco de Quevedo, are widely considered the most prominent ...
, who was an influence in his early works.
Shaped by both Golden Age writers such as
Francisco de Quevedo
Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Santibáñez Villegas, Knight of the Order of Santiago (; 14 September 1580 – 8 September 1645) was a Spanish nobleman, politician and writer of the Baroque era. Along with his lifelong rival, Luis de Góngora ...
and, like many Spanish poets of his era, by European vanguard movements, notably by
surrealism, he joined a generation of socially conscious Spanish authors concerned with workers rights.
[ Though Hernández employed novel images and concepts in his verses, he never abandoned classical, popular rhythms and rhymes. A member of the ]Communist Party of Spain
The Communist Party of Spain ( es, Partido Comunista de España; PCE) is a Marxist-Leninist party that, since 1986, has been part of the United Left coalition, which is part of Unidas Podemos. It currently has two of its politicians serving a ...
, Hernández was a member of the Fifth Regiment at the start of 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 ...
and served in the 11th Division during the Battle of Teruel
The Battle of Teruel was fought in and around the city of Teruel during the Spanish Civil War between December 1937 and February 1938, during the worst Spanish winter in 20 years.Hugh Purcell, p. 95. The battle was one of the bloodiest actions of ...
. He campaigned for the Republic during the war, writing poetry and addressing troops deployed to the front.
During the Civil War, on the 9 March 1937, he married Josefina Manresa Marhuenda, whom he had met in 1933 in Orihuela. His wife inspired him to write most of his romantic work. Their first son, Manuel Ramón, was born on 19 December 1937 but died in infancy on 19 October 1938. Months later came their second son, Manuel Miguel (4 January 1939 – 1984). Josefina died on 18 February 1987 at age 71 in Elche
Elche ( ca-valencia, Elx) is a city and municipality of Spain, belonging to the province of Alicante, in the Valencian Community. According to 2014 data, Elche has a population of 228,647 inhabitants,[Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...]
.
Unlike others, he could not escape Spain
, image_flag = Bandera de España.svg
, image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg
, national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond")
, national_anthem = (English: "Royal March")
, i ...
after the Republican surrender and was arrested multiple times after the war for his anti-fascist sympathies. He was tried in 1939, along with Eduardo de Guzmán and 27 others, accused of being a communist commissar and of writing poems harmful to the Francoist cause. He was eventually sentenced to death
Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the state-sanctioned practice of deliberately killing a person as a punishment for an actual or supposed crime, usually following an authorized, rule-governed process to conclude that t ...
. His death sentence, however, was commuted to a prison term of 30 years, leading to incarceration in multiple jails under extraordinarily harsh conditions. He suffered pneumonia
Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severi ...
in Palencia
Palencia () is a city of Spain located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is the capital and most populated municipality of the province of Palencia.
Located in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula, in the northern half o ...
prison, bronchitis
Bronchitis is inflammation of the bronchi (large and medium-sized airways) in the lungs that causes coughing. Bronchitis usually begins as an infection in the nose, ears, throat, or sinuses. The infection then makes its way down to the bronchi. ...
in Ocaña prison and eventually succumbed to typhus
Typhus, also known as typhus fever, is a group of infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub typhus, and murine typhus. Common symptoms include fever, headache, and a rash. Typically these begin one to two weeks after exposure. ...
and tuberculosis
Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, i ...
in 1942 in Alicante
Alicante ( ca-valencia, Alacant) is a city and municipality in the Valencian Community, Spain. It is the capital of the province of Alicante and a historic Mediterranean port. The population of the city was 337,482 , the second-largest in t ...
gaol. Just before his death, Hernández scrawled his last verse on the wall of the hospital: ''Goodbye, brothers, comrades, friends: let me take my leave of the sun and the fields.'' Some of his verses were kept by his jailers.
While in prison, Hernández produced an extraordinary amount of poetry, much of it in the form of simple songs, which the poet collected in his papers and sent to his wife and others. These poems are now known as his ''Cancionero y romancero de ausencia'' (''Songs and Ballads of Absence''). In these works, the poet writes not only of the tragedy of the Spanish Civil War and his own incarceration, but also of the death of an infant son and the struggle of his wife and another son to survive in poverty. The intensity and simplicity of the poems, combined with the extraordinary situation of the poet, give them remarkable power.
Perhaps Hernández's best known poem is "Nanas de la cebolla" ("Onion Lullaby"), a reply in verse to a letter from his wife in which she informed him that she was surviving on bread and onions. In the poem, the poet envisions his son breastfeeding on his mother's onion blood (''sangre de cebolla''), and uses the child's laughter as a counterpoint to the mother's desperation. In this as in other poems, the poet turns his wife's body into a mythic symbol of desperation and hope, of regenerative power desperately needed in a broken Spain.
In July 2010 the poet's family filed a lawsuit in the Spanish Supreme Court in which they asked for his guilty verdict (for his supposed crime of left wing sympathies), to be annulled. In 1939 he had been condemned to death as "an extremely dangerous and despicable element to all good Spaniards." Franco
Franco may refer to:
Name
* Franco (name)
* Francisco Franco (1892–1975), Spanish general and dictator of Spain from 1939 to 1975
* Franco Luambo (1938–1989), Congolese musician, the "Grand Maître"
Prefix
* Franco, a prefix used when ref ...
later reduced the sentence so that he would not become an international martyr, as Lorca did. In March 2010 the family had a posthumous "declaration of reparation" from the Spanish government, but, his daughter-in-law Lucía Izquierdo said: "We want something more, that they void the death sentence.. that they hand down a ruling of innocent". Lawyers for the poet's family had new evidence, a 1939 letter from a fascist military official, Juan Bellod, testifying to his innocence. "I have known Miguel Hernández since he was a boy", the letter began. "He is a person with an impeccable past, generous sentiments and deep religious and humanist training, but whose excessive sensitivity and poetic temperament have led him to act in accordance with the passion of the moment rather than calm, firm will. I fully guarantee his behaviour and his patriotic and religious fervour. I do not believe that he is, at heart, an enemy of our Glorious Movement".
Works
The poet's works include:
Poetry
* ''Perito en lunas'' (''Lunar expert'', 1933)
* ''Imagen de tu huella'' (1934)
* ''El rayo que no cesa'' (''Unceasing Lightning'', 1936)
* ''Viento del pueblo'' (1937)
* ''El hombre acecha'' (1939)
* ''Cancionero y romancero de ausencias'' (incomplete, 1938–1942)
* ''El silbo vulnerado'' (''The Injured Whistle'', 1939)
Drama
* ''Quién te ha visto y quién te ve y sombra de lo que eras'' (If only they could see you now, and shadow of what you were, 1934), an auto sacramental that mimics Calderón ones.
* ''El torero más valiente'' (The Bravest Bullfighter, 1934) dedicated to Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
Ignacio Sánchez Mejías (6 June 1891, Seville – 13 August 1934, Madrid) was a Spanish matador.
After his death following a goring (''cornada'') in the Plaza of Manzanares, he was memorialized by several poets of the Generation of '27, notably ...
, published in 1986.
* ''Hijos de la piedra'' (The sons of the stone, 1935)
* ''El labrador de más aire'' (The peasant of more air, 1937)
* ''Teatro en la guerra'' (War theatre, 1937)
* ''Pastor de la muerte'' (Death's shepherd, 1937)
Anthologies
*''The Selected Poems of Miguel Hernández'' (2001), translated by Ted Genoways
Ted Genoways (born April 13, 1972) is an American journalist and author. He is a contributing writer at '' Mother Jones'' and ''The New Republic'', and an editor-at-large at ''Pacific Standard''. His books include ''This Blessed Earth'' and ''T ...
, Robert Bly
Robert Elwood Bly (December 23, 1926 – November 21, 2021) was an American poet, essayist, activist and leader of the mythopoetic men's movement. His best-known prose book is '' Iron John: A Book About Men'' (1990), which spent 62 weeks on ' ...
, Philip Levine, Edwin Honig and others. .
Legacy
Miguel Hernández University of Elche
The Miguel Hernández University (''UMH'', es, Universidad Miguel Hernández, ca-valencia, Universitat Miguel Hernández, lat, Universitas Miguel Hernández illicitana, IPA), is a Spanish Public University offering education, research ...
, and Alicante-Elche Miguel Hernández Airport are named after him.
See also
* 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. ...
* Generation of '36
* Spanish poetry
References
External links
*
Miguel Hernández
on Cervantes.es
40 poems
Poems
Association of friends of Miguel Hernández
(site of the Miguel Hernández Foundation)
Miguel Hernández non-profit foundation
El Eco Hernandiano
Miguel Hernández University
Sounds and videos about Miguel Hernandez and his works. Web site about poetry in general. Internet Radio
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hernandez, Miguel
1910 births
1942 deaths
People from Orihuela
20th-century deaths from tuberculosis
Spanish people of the Spanish Civil War (Republican faction)
Writers from the Valencian Community
Spanish people who died in prison custody
Tuberculosis deaths in Spain
Spanish Civil War prisoners of war
Spanish prisoners of war
Prisoners who died in Spanish detention
Spanish prisoners sentenced to death
Prisoners sentenced to death by Spain
Spanish communists
20th-century Spanish poets
Communist poets
Communist Party of Spain politicians