Vicente Pío Marcelino Cirilo Aleixandre y Merlo (; 26 April 1898 – 14 December 1984) was a Spanish poet who was born in
Seville
Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...
. Aleixandre received the
Nobel Prize for Literature
)
, image = Nobel Prize.png
, caption =
, awarded_for = Outstanding contributions in literature
, presenter = Swedish Academy
, holder = Annie Ernaux (2022)
, location = Stockholm, Sweden
, year = 1901
, ...
in 1977 "for a creative poetic writing which illuminates man's condition in the cosmos and in present-day society, at the same time representing the great renewal of the traditions of Spanish poetry between the wars". He was part of 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. ...
.
Aleixandre's early poetry, which he wrote mostly in free verse, is highly
surrealistic
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
. It also praises the beauty of nature by using symbols that represent the earth and the sea. Many of Aleixandre's early poems are filled with sadness. They reflect his feeling that people have lost the passion and free spirit that he saw in nature. He was one of the greatest poets of Spanish literature alongside Cernuda and Lorca. The melancholia of his poetry was also the melancholy of failed or ephemeral love affairs.
Aleixandre's bisexuality was well known to his circle of friends, but he never admitted it publicly. He had a long-term love relationship with the poet
Carlos Bousoño
Carlos Bousoño Prieto (9 May 1923 – 24 October 2015) was a Spanish poet and literary critic. His work is frequently associated with the post-Spanish Civil War literary group.
Bousoño was a recipient of both the National Prize for Spanish Lite ...
.
He died on 14 December 1984 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 ...
, aged 86.
His works
His early collections of poetry include ''Passion of the Earth'' (1935) and ''Destruction or Love'' (1933). In 1944, he wrote ''Shadow of Paradise'', the poetry where he first began to concentrate on themes such as fellowship, friendliness, and spiritual unity. His later books of poetry include ''History of the Heart'' (1954) and ''In a Vast Dominion'' (1962).
Aleixandre studied law at the
University of Madrid. Selections of his work were translated into English in ''Twenty Poems of Vicente Aleixandre'' (1977) and ''A Longing for the Light: Selected Poems of Vincent Aleixandre'' (1979;
Copper Canyon Press
Copper Canyon Press is an independent, non-profit small press, founded in 1972 specializing exclusively in the publication of poetry. It is located in Port Townsend, Washington.
Copper Canyon Press publishes new collections of poetry by both popu ...
, 2007) translated by
Lewis Hyde
Lewis Hyde (born 1945) is a scholar, essayist, translator, cultural critic and writer whose scholarly work focuses on the nature of imagination, creativity, and property.
Profile
Hyde was born in Cambridge, MA. He is the son of Elizabeth Sanfor ...
.
During the
Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government policies ...
Aleixandre was among the contributors of ''
El Mono Azul
''El Mono Azul'' (Spanish: ''Blue Overalls'') was an anti-fascist magazine which was published in Madrid during the Spanish Civil War. The magazine existed between 1936 and 1939 and was one of the major cultural, intellectual and artistic publica ...
'', a Republican cultural magazine.
Pure poetry
His first book, ''Ámbito'', written between 1924 and 1927 and published in
Málaga
Málaga (, ) is a municipality of Spain, capital of the Province of Málaga, in the autonomous community of Andalusia. With a population of 578,460 in 2020, it is the second-most populous city in Andalusia after Seville and the sixth most pop ...
in 1928, is the work of an incipient poet who has not yet found his own voice. The assonated short verse and
art for art's sake
Art for art's sake—the usual English rendering of ''l'art pour l'art'' (), a French slogan from the latter part of the 19th century—is a phrase that expresses the philosophy that the intrinsic value of art, and the only 'true' art, is divorce ...
aesthetics of
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 ...
and
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 ...
prevail, in addition to the
ultraistic echoes of classical Spanish poetry from the
Golden Age
The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...
, especially
Fray Luis de León
Fray or Frays or The Fray may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Fictional entities
*Fray, a phenomenon in Terry Pratchett's '' The Carpet People''
*Fray, the main character in the video games:
**''Fray in Magical Adventure''
**''Fray CD' ...
and
Góngora.
Surreal poetry
In the following years, between 1928 and 1932, there is a radical change in Aleixandre's poetic conception. Inspired by the predecessors of
surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists depicted unnerving, illogical scenes and developed techniques to allow the unconscious mind to express itself. Its aim was, according to l ...
(especially
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud (, ; 20 October 1854 – 10 November 1891) was a French poet known for his transgressive and surreal themes and for his influence on modern literature and arts, prefiguring surrealism. Born in Charleville, he starte ...
and
Lautréamont) and by
Freud
Sigmund Freud ( , ; born Sigismund Schlomo Freud; 6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939) was an Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, a clinical method for evaluating and treating pathologies explained as originating in conflicts in ...
, he adopts
prose poetry
Prose poetry is poetry written in prose form instead of verse form, while preserving poetic qualities such as heightened imagery, parataxis, and emotional effects.
Characteristics
Prose poetry is written as prose, without the line breaks associ ...
(''Passion of the Earth'', 1935),
free verse
Free verse is an open form of poetry, which in its modern form arose through the French ''vers libre'' form. It does not use consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any musical pattern. It thus tends to follow the rhythm of natural speech.
Definit ...
, and plainly surreal methods such as free verse and the visionary image (''
Swords like Lips'', 1932; ''
Destruction or Love'', 1935; ''
Shadow of Paradise'', 1944) as his form of expression. The aesthetics of these poems are irrational, and the expression comes close to "flow", even without accepting it as a dogma of faith. Along with surrealism, the poet does not take on any tradition, not even the metric, and frees himself.
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 ...
could say: "Your verse is like nothing else." And in effect his style brings unpublished stylistic novelties such as the inverted
simile
A simile () is a figure of speech that directly ''compares'' two things. Similes differ from other metaphors by highlighting the similarities between two things using comparison words such as "like", "as", "so", or "than", while other metaphors cr ...
(''Swords like Lips'') or the equivalent disjunctive nexus (''Destruction or Love''), the
hyperbole
Hyperbole (; adj. hyperbolic ) is the use of exaggeration as a rhetorical device or figure of speech. In rhetoric, it is also sometimes known as auxesis (literally 'growth'). In poetry and oratory, it emphasizes, evokes strong feelings, and ...
adds, the uncoded dream
symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...
, enriching without question the stylistic possibilities of the Spanish poetic language, just as
Garcilaso,
Góngora and
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 ...
, each one a great renovator of lyric language, did in the past. The poet celebrates love as a natural, ungovernable force that breaks down all human limitations and criticizes the conventionalism with which society attempts to conquer it.
Popular Culture
* A sculptural monument to Aleixandre, designed by the Spanish artist Juan López Ballesteros, is installed in la plaza mayor in Madrid, Spain.
* The Spanish government has issued several postage stamps featuring portraits of Aleixandre, including a centenary series in 2001.
References
* Poesin blev min räddning (1977), documentary directed by
Humberto López y Guerra about the Spanish Literature Nobel Prize Winner Vicente Aleixandre produced for Swedish Television TV1-Kultur
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Aleixandre, Vicente
Nobel laureates in Literature
Spanish Nobel laureates
Writers from Seville
Members of the Royal Spanish Academy
1898 births
1984 deaths
Generation of '27
Complutense University of Madrid alumni
LGBT Nobel laureates
Spanish LGBT poets
Spanish male poets
20th-century Spanish poets
Surrealist poets
Spanish surrealist writers