José María Gabriel y Galán (28 June 1870, in Frades de la Sierra (

Salamanca Salamanca () is a Municipality of Spain, municipality and city in Spain, capital of the Province of Salamanca, province of the same name, located in the autonomous community of Castile and León. It is located in the Campo Charro comarca, in the ...

) - 6 January 1905, in

Guijo de Granadilla Guijo de Granadilla is a municipality located in the province of Cáceres, Extremadura, Spain. It is located at 32 kilometers from Plasencia. See also * List of municipalities in Cáceres This is a list of the municipalities in the provinces o ...

, Cáceres, España) was a Spanish poet in Castilian and Extremaduran. He was a teacher in Guijuelo (

) & Piedrahíta (

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). His poetry is quite conservative both in its thematic and its structure: he defended

tradition A tradition is a system of beliefs or behaviors (folk custom) passed down within a group of people or society with symbolic meaning or special significance with origins in the past. A component of cultural expressions and folklore, common e ...

family Family (from ) is a Social group, group of people related either by consanguinity (by recognized birth) or Affinity (law), affinity (by marriage or other relationship). It forms the basis for social order. Ideally, families offer predictabili ...

, race,

catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

dogma Dogma, in its broadest sense, is any belief held definitively and without the possibility of reform. It may be in the form of an official system of principles or doctrines of a religion, such as Judaism, Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, or Islam ...

or simple rural life.

Life

He was born into a peasant family that owned its own lands. He spent his childhood in his hometown, where he attended school. At 15, he left for

in order to go on with his studies. His first verses can be traced back to that early period. Simultaneously, he starts working in a textile warehouse. In 1888, he graduated for being a school teacher and he is assigned a working position in Guijuelo, about 20 km away from his hometown. After a brief stay in Guijuelo, he departs again for

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, this time for keeping on with his studies in the Escuela Normal Central ("Normal Central School"). He was to live there for a very short period, for the metropolis caused disgust in him (he actually mentioned it as 'Modernópolis' in some of his letters). After finishing his studies, he is sent to Piedrahíta (town in the

province), where he puts his newly acquired pedagogic knowledge into practice. Such period of his life is characterised by a gloomy frame of mind, he signed the letters to his friend as "El Solitario" ("The solitary one"). In those years the young teacher develops his characteristic sad and melancholic personality, with profound religious beliefs (which he got from his mother, Bernarda), which can be perceived in his poems. It wasn't until he met his wife, Desideria, (who she mentions as "''Mi vaquerilla''" (my little cowgirl)) that he undergoes a radical change, which becomes even deeper from his wedding on, the 26th of January 1898, in Plasencia. He resigns from his job as a teacher and sets up his new residence in Guijo de Granadilla, in the

province of Cáceres The province of Cáceres (; ; ; ) is a province of western Spain, and makes up the northern half of the autonomous community of Extremadura. Its capital is the city of Cáceres. Other cities in the province include Plasencia, Coria, Navalm ...

, where he administers the dehesa El Tejar, property of his wife's uncle. It's there where he can find the time and tranquility for shaping his poetic style. As his first son is born (Jesús, 1898) he writes ''El Cristu Benditu'', the first of his famous ''Extremeñas''. He died on 6 January 1905, a victim of pneumonia. The city hall of Guijo de Granadilla currently still maintains the house in which he lived, as a museum devoted to him, where his manuscripts and personal objects are displayed (all of which were donated by his heirs).

Works

His poetry cannot be included within the modernist movement of that time, for it contains many of the more conservative elements present both in the structure and topics of the poems: he defends tradition, family, lineage, catholic dogma or the virtue of the peasant's life. Besides, his poetry contains archaic words aplenty, which had already fallen out of use by that time, which convey manners and customs of a former epoch. Collections of poems: *''Castellanas'' (1902) *''Extremeñas'' (1902) *''Campesinas'' (1904) *''Nuevas Castellanas'' (1905) *''Religiosas'' (1906) His works exerted influence on many posterior writers, such as: * Mario Simón Arias-Camisón * Luis Chamizo Trigueros * Miguel y Elisa Herrero Uceda

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Gabriel Y Galan, Jose Maria 1870 births 1905 deaths People from the Province of Salamanca 19th-century Spanish poets Writers from Extremadura Spanish male poets 19th-century Spanish male writers Spanish writers Spanish poets