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Aires murcianos
Spanish
125 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1898
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 28, 2014
Vicente Medina is one of the most famous and accomplished poets to come out of Murcia, an arid and poor region of southeastern Spain which I happen to love very much. Certainly he is the greatest poet to write in the local dialect (on which more in a future review), and his work – especially this volume – has been taken up by many as a kind of reference-point for traditional culture and customs of the region. Which it is only in small part; his concern is not with any sentimental description of local folkishness, but rather with giving a voice to the destitute around him – the labourers, cave-dwellers, and poorest of the poor.
Born in 1866 in the little village of Archena, the son of a labourer, Medina eventually settled out on the coast in the city of Cartagena, where most of his earliest works were published. They were greeted with little more than polite attention until his play El Rento – written in dialect – drew rave reviews and suggested a way forward. Aires murcianos followed in 1898, to great acclaim – the influential writer Azorín said that if Medina wrote nothing else it would guarantee him entry to the national Parnassus, while critic Luis Bonafoux was moved to describe Medina as el poeta de los poetas españoles.
That seems hyperbolic now, and in their emotional tone the poems can be rather cloying for modern tastes; the first piece, ‘Naïca’, for instance, begins with a boy attempting to seduce a girl while she sits silently – sin icir naïca – and ends with him crying over her tomb, the girl again lying silent sin icir naïca. (The refrain economically illustrates two of the most prominent features of Murcian speech – loss of initial and intervocalic ds, and abundant use of diminutive forms in -ico, naïca thus being a reduced diminutive form of standard nada.) The parallel may seem heavy-handed, but even here the dialect gives Medina many interesting effects to play with, and when he turns to less schmaltzy subjects he can be a very moving and stimulating poet.
Perhaps my favourite is ‘Noche-Güena’, still occasionally anthologised, which combines dramatic descriptions of the Murcian sierras with a characteristic focus on a very poor family struggling to survive. Huddled together on Christmas Eve in their casón, a cave-like shelter dug into the slope of a hillside, without even the means to make a fire, Juan and his family are tortured by the smell of people walking past outside carrying fresh bread and tortas de Pascua (a local Christmas delicacy). The poet looks back to an imagined golden age, before the land had been parcelled up among rich landowners:
Instead all that is left to the poor now is el consuelo e la sierra. The consolation of the mountains. (Which would have made a good alternative title.) My quick translation there is in standard English, which of course is wholly inappropriate since what's really required is a good local patois from somewhere suitably obscure and rural – Lincolnshire, perhaps. Actually, one of the things this book reminded me of was Tennyson's Lincolnshire dialect poems – if only he'd translated Medina! That would have been an odd meeting of literary minds to make me very happy.
If you're interested in the area, then, this is a must; if you're interested in European poetry of the period in general then it's well worth your time. This particular edition is a charmingly pointless facsimile reprint of a well-known 1900 tomito from the Biblioteca Mignon, with transcripts and mostly-useless bibliographical notes on facing pages. Contextual information, biographical comments, and explanations of the more obscure dialectalisms are all conspicuously absent, which is a shame, since even if your Spanish is a lot better than mine, you might struggle with some of the terms in here and supplementary materials may be wanted.
Born in 1866 in the little village of Archena, the son of a labourer, Medina eventually settled out on the coast in the city of Cartagena, where most of his earliest works were published. They were greeted with little more than polite attention until his play El Rento – written in dialect – drew rave reviews and suggested a way forward. Aires murcianos followed in 1898, to great acclaim – the influential writer Azorín said that if Medina wrote nothing else it would guarantee him entry to the national Parnassus, while critic Luis Bonafoux was moved to describe Medina as el poeta de los poetas españoles.
That seems hyperbolic now, and in their emotional tone the poems can be rather cloying for modern tastes; the first piece, ‘Naïca’, for instance, begins with a boy attempting to seduce a girl while she sits silently – sin icir naïca – and ends with him crying over her tomb, the girl again lying silent sin icir naïca. (The refrain economically illustrates two of the most prominent features of Murcian speech – loss of initial and intervocalic ds, and abundant use of diminutive forms in -ico, naïca thus being a reduced diminutive form of standard nada.) The parallel may seem heavy-handed, but even here the dialect gives Medina many interesting effects to play with, and when he turns to less schmaltzy subjects he can be a very moving and stimulating poet.
Perhaps my favourite is ‘Noche-Güena’, still occasionally anthologised, which combines dramatic descriptions of the Murcian sierras with a characteristic focus on a very poor family struggling to survive. Huddled together on Christmas Eve in their casón, a cave-like shelter dug into the slope of a hillside, without even the means to make a fire, Juan and his family are tortured by the smell of people walking past outside carrying fresh bread and tortas de Pascua (a local Christmas delicacy). The poet looks back to an imagined golden age, before the land had been parcelled up among rich landowners:
Nuestros eran enantes
los montes con sus leñas,
y libres pa los probes
aquellos artos de pinás espesas…
libres, con sus lentiscos y chaparras,
lo mesmo los colläos que las chentas…
y libres los barrancos con sus nebros…
¡libres, con sus romeros, las laëras!…
Once they were our own,
the mountains with their firewood,
and free to any poorman
those dense pinewood heights…
free, with their mastics and oaks,
both the low hills and the summits…
and free the gullies with their juniper…
free, with their rosemary, the mountain slopes!
Instead all that is left to the poor now is el consuelo e la sierra. The consolation of the mountains. (Which would have made a good alternative title.) My quick translation there is in standard English, which of course is wholly inappropriate since what's really required is a good local patois from somewhere suitably obscure and rural – Lincolnshire, perhaps. Actually, one of the things this book reminded me of was Tennyson's Lincolnshire dialect poems – if only he'd translated Medina! That would have been an odd meeting of literary minds to make me very happy.
If you're interested in the area, then, this is a must; if you're interested in European poetry of the period in general then it's well worth your time. This particular edition is a charmingly pointless facsimile reprint of a well-known 1900 tomito from the Biblioteca Mignon, with transcripts and mostly-useless bibliographical notes on facing pages. Contextual information, biographical comments, and explanations of the more obscure dialectalisms are all conspicuously absent, which is a shame, since even if your Spanish is a lot better than mine, you might struggle with some of the terms in here and supplementary materials may be wanted.
June 1, 2025
Me ha encantado esta antología de poemas folclóricos murcianos, escritos bajo la pluma de Vicente Medina. Retrata las costumbres y tradiciones de la huerta, en torno a diversas temáticas, como las relaciones amorosas y el galanteo, el paisaje y sus rincones en plena exuberancia, sentimientos trágicos de la vida, la guerra y la emigración. Todo ello escrito a través de un tono popular, imitando el dialecto panocho, utilizando un amplio abanico de metáforas, símiles y analogías.
En otras palabras, Aires murcianos se erige como una estampa única, original y fiel a la huerta murciana y a sus gentes. Podría mencionar los poemas de Juanico, de Carmencica o la Doloricas, pero hay uno, en especial, que me emocionó. Me lo leyó mi pareja granaína en voz alta y se sintió como suyo:
Me hizo muy feliz leer este poemario, no solo por el significado y el contenido del mismo, sino también por haberlo leído con mi personita especial, apreciando y admirando de dónde vengo. Se ha sentido como volver a mi hogar.
En otras palabras, Aires murcianos se erige como una estampa única, original y fiel a la huerta murciana y a sus gentes. Podría mencionar los poemas de Juanico, de Carmencica o la Doloricas, pero hay uno, en especial, que me emocionó. Me lo leyó mi pareja granaína en voz alta y se sintió como suyo:
[...]
Nena la del seno altico
y pelo como la endrina;
nena de los ojos negros
y de la boca encendía;
tú la que por cara tienes
una rosa alejandrina,
serás, cuanti más lejicos
te vayas, más murcianica...
y yo, en el mundo, ande fuera,
¡siempre te conocería!
Me hizo muy feliz leer este poemario, no solo por el significado y el contenido del mismo, sino también por haberlo leído con mi personita especial, apreciando y admirando de dónde vengo. Se ha sentido como volver a mi hogar.
December 18, 2019
De mi pueblo y su familia fue vecina de mi abuelo le doy el máximo
February 13, 2023
4 estrellas porq no soy de poesía costumbrista...pero cada vez q m lo leo consigo retrotraerme al tiempo en el que habla y entenderlo todo tan bien!!. Ademas es libro q recomendaria sin duda porque además de leerse en una tarde y de ver lo curioso del habla murciana representado en la literatura, te llega no sé. Habla del amor de la miseria y de la muerte, de la murcia de la epoca vamos.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews