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Luis Cernuda: Años españoles
Luis Cernuda (Sevilla, 1902 - Ciudad de México, 1963) es uno de los mayores poetas del siglo xx, autor de una obra de hondas raíces románticas, basada ante todo en la exploración meditativa y en una profunda exigencia moral para consigo mismo y sus contemporáneos. Su poesía, que ha influido en sucesivas generaciones, ha dado pie a abundantes y excelentes estudios críticos, pero, curiosamente, aún no disponíamos de una biografía completa y exhaustiva del autor de La Realidad y el Deseo. Antonio Rivero Taravillo llena brillantemente este vacío con Luis Cernuda. Años españoles (1902-1938), merecedor del XX Premio Comillas de Historia, Biografía y Memorias.
Este volumen abarca su vida hasta su partida al exilio en 1938, en plena convulsión bélica. Antonio Rivero recorre ambientes y circunstancias que serán claves en la obra del poeta: la hosca atmósfera familiar, Sevilla como ciudad amada y odiada, y, sobre todo, el despuntar y desarrollo de una vocación poética sentida ya para siempre como el deber de expresar el misterio del mundo y sus conflictos. En los años veinte y treinta —una de las etapas más interesantes de la poesía española contemporánea, con la eclosión de la Generación del 27— asistimos a la gestación de los primeros títulos de Cernuda, con esa primera culminación que significa Donde habite el olvido (1933). Por otra parte, además de situar cada uno de estos títulos en su contexto, esta biografía aporta nuevos y valiosos datos acerca del compromiso de Cernuda con el gran proyecto pedagógico de la Segunda República, las Misiones Pedagógicas, así como de la arriesgada circunstancia política que le tocó vivir en la Valencia republicana.
Este volumen abarca su vida hasta su partida al exilio en 1938, en plena convulsión bélica. Antonio Rivero recorre ambientes y circunstancias que serán claves en la obra del poeta: la hosca atmósfera familiar, Sevilla como ciudad amada y odiada, y, sobre todo, el despuntar y desarrollo de una vocación poética sentida ya para siempre como el deber de expresar el misterio del mundo y sus conflictos. En los años veinte y treinta —una de las etapas más interesantes de la poesía española contemporánea, con la eclosión de la Generación del 27— asistimos a la gestación de los primeros títulos de Cernuda, con esa primera culminación que significa Donde habite el olvido (1933). Por otra parte, además de situar cada uno de estos títulos en su contexto, esta biografía aporta nuevos y valiosos datos acerca del compromiso de Cernuda con el gran proyecto pedagógico de la Segunda República, las Misiones Pedagógicas, así como de la arriesgada circunstancia política que le tocó vivir en la Valencia republicana.
456 pages, Paperback
First published April 1, 2008
15 people want to read
About the author
Antonio Rivero Taravillo
81 books5 followersAntonio Rivero Taravillo (Melilla, 1963), escritor y traductor literario, ha publicado libros de viaje, entre ellos Macedonia de rutas, los poemarios Farewell to poesy, El árbol de la vida y Lejos, y varios ensayos, el más reciente de los cuales es Las líneas de otras manos. Ha reunido una muestra de entradas de su blog en el volumen Afán de permanencia. Ha vertido al español selecciones de poesía gaélica escocesa e irlandesa, así como de los primeros poetas norteamericanos. Ha traducido también la obra de poetas admirados por Luis Cernuda, como John Keats (Poemas, I Premio Rafael Cansinos Assens de Traducción), Sir Alfred Tennyson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, William Shakespeare o William Butler Yeats. Sobre Cernuda ha publicado artículos en revistas de España y México y una monografía, Con otro acento. Divagaciones sobre el cernuda «inglés», ganadora del Premio Archivo Hispalense de Literatura 2005.
En 2008, el primer tomo de la biografía que concluye con este volumen, titulado Luis Cernuda. Años españoles (1902-1938) y publicado en esta misma colección, mereció el XX Premio Comillas de Historia, Biografía y Memorias.
En 2008, el primer tomo de la biografía que concluye con este volumen, titulado Luis Cernuda. Años españoles (1902-1938) y publicado en esta misma colección, mereció el XX Premio Comillas de Historia, Biografía y Memorias.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
July 12, 2025
Una de las mejores biografías del poeta sevillano. Escrita con destreza y bien documentada, desmiente y rectifica muchos de los mitos acerca de una de las figuras más relevantes en la historia intelectual de España durante el siglo XX. La lectura se disfruta y de este río surgen ricos manantiales. Una recomendación para todos aquellos que desean entender la España y Andalucía intelectual de preguerras, seguida de otro volumen que se dedica al exilio.
October 27, 2022
«Ellos, los vencedores
Caínes sempiternos,
De todo me arrancaron.
Me dejan el destierro»
💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
qué hago yo ahora con mi vida
Caínes sempiternos,
De todo me arrancaron.
Me dejan el destierro»
💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔💔
qué hago yo ahora con mi vida
January 10, 2011
Luis Cernuda was one of the many great poets that comprised "La generación del 27". The group dissolved after the Civil War when many of them were killed (Lorca, Miguel Hernandez) or went into exile. This group is generally credited with cleansing spanish poetry from vestiges of romantic contrivance and the slavery to formal rules even though poets like Antonio Machado an Juan Ramón Jiménez had already started to write in a more "essential" and direct verse. They also linked Spanish lyricism to the European currents of the moment like surrealism. From the artists of this generation, some names achieved perhaps international recognition like Federico Garcia Lorca among the poets and Dalí or Buñuel in art and film. Others are less known outside of Spain.
Luis Cernuda is perhaps one of the few poets that despite breaking with the past, still dips deeply into romantic waters. His admiration for the romanticism of fellow andalusian G. A. Becquer paired with his naturally sensitive nature determines his vocation as a poet. Other poets of his generation like Lorca, for example, resort to popular folk forms, surrealism, and the baring of language to create a their personal worlds. Each poet is very distinct but they all share this ambitious thrust in a new direction. Cernuda will meet and befriend most of the big names in poetry like Pedro Salinas (who was also his teacher), Jorge Guillén, Vicente Aleixandre, Manuel Altolaguirre, Dámaso Alonso, Rafael Alberti and many others including some foreign poets like Langston Hughes and Stephen Spender,who he met during the war.
Cernuda's main theme is the distance between desire and reality, a quintessential romantic idea. His poetry is full of yearning and unfulfilled desire.
The biography follows his life from his early years in Sevilla, to which he will always feel an ambivalent love/hate relationship, to his maturation into a full-fledged writer and follows his career to the very beginning of the Civil War and his exile to England, later Mexico. This biography should be called "definitive" as it is excruciatingly researched. The writing is a bit clumsy at times but readable nonetheless. The impression we get of the poet as a person is probably accurate: a being that always felt "distinct" and managed to alienate most of his friends and colleagues with his fastidiousness and particularly defensive sense of self. As a matter of fact, one of the things I liked about the book is that the author doesn't spare us all the petty fights and disputes among the great poets of this generation, their jealousy and, in some cases, their bigotry. Cernuda was a homosexual and some of his colleagues didn't look kindly on that. Then again, so were Lorca, Aleixandre, who won the Nobel Prize in 1977, and Emilio Prados.
Cernuda's home life wasn't particularly happy as his father was a cold military man with faint hopes or interest in his son's future. Luis studied Law but Literature soon took a hold on his soul and shortly after meeting Pedro Salinas, he devoted himself to it as hardheartedly as a man of his frail animus could.He was present during the seminal moment of the birth of the generation, the homage paid to the Golden Age poet Luis Góngora on the bicentennial of his death.
He collaborated on "Litoral" a short lived magazine that would be the vehicle for most of this generations early poetry and artwork. He also collaborated on a few poetic anthologies. He published books like "Perfil del Aire" "Un Rio, Un Amor" and "La Realidad y el El Deseo"and "Ocnos". Cernuda also employed himself gainfully in "Pedagogic Missions", a novel form of rural education promoted by the Ministry of Education of the Second Republic. This was an outreach program to bring culture, film and literature to the most remote regions of then rural illiterate Spain. This program was seen as a threat by the fascists and was quickly dissolved. While Crenuda was decidedly left-leaning, he had no love for the Communists either, especially when he realized that they were as much into censorship and repression as their counterparts in the other side. Most poets, with few exceptions (Rafael Alberti for example, highly overrated also in my opinion) , quickly learnt the true nature of a Stalinist inspired government and lost faith in any revolution.
This biography also deals with Cernuda's ill-fated relationship with Serafin Ferro, a handsome young man for whom he fell in love and who hastily tired of him. While others would seldom come to fill the void, the hurt and scars of this love would last forever.
Luis Cernuda is perhaps one of the few poets that despite breaking with the past, still dips deeply into romantic waters. His admiration for the romanticism of fellow andalusian G. A. Becquer paired with his naturally sensitive nature determines his vocation as a poet. Other poets of his generation like Lorca, for example, resort to popular folk forms, surrealism, and the baring of language to create a their personal worlds. Each poet is very distinct but they all share this ambitious thrust in a new direction. Cernuda will meet and befriend most of the big names in poetry like Pedro Salinas (who was also his teacher), Jorge Guillén, Vicente Aleixandre, Manuel Altolaguirre, Dámaso Alonso, Rafael Alberti and many others including some foreign poets like Langston Hughes and Stephen Spender,who he met during the war.
Cernuda's main theme is the distance between desire and reality, a quintessential romantic idea. His poetry is full of yearning and unfulfilled desire.
The biography follows his life from his early years in Sevilla, to which he will always feel an ambivalent love/hate relationship, to his maturation into a full-fledged writer and follows his career to the very beginning of the Civil War and his exile to England, later Mexico. This biography should be called "definitive" as it is excruciatingly researched. The writing is a bit clumsy at times but readable nonetheless. The impression we get of the poet as a person is probably accurate: a being that always felt "distinct" and managed to alienate most of his friends and colleagues with his fastidiousness and particularly defensive sense of self. As a matter of fact, one of the things I liked about the book is that the author doesn't spare us all the petty fights and disputes among the great poets of this generation, their jealousy and, in some cases, their bigotry. Cernuda was a homosexual and some of his colleagues didn't look kindly on that. Then again, so were Lorca, Aleixandre, who won the Nobel Prize in 1977, and Emilio Prados.
Cernuda's home life wasn't particularly happy as his father was a cold military man with faint hopes or interest in his son's future. Luis studied Law but Literature soon took a hold on his soul and shortly after meeting Pedro Salinas, he devoted himself to it as hardheartedly as a man of his frail animus could.He was present during the seminal moment of the birth of the generation, the homage paid to the Golden Age poet Luis Góngora on the bicentennial of his death.
He collaborated on "Litoral" a short lived magazine that would be the vehicle for most of this generations early poetry and artwork. He also collaborated on a few poetic anthologies. He published books like "Perfil del Aire" "Un Rio, Un Amor" and "La Realidad y el El Deseo"and "Ocnos". Cernuda also employed himself gainfully in "Pedagogic Missions", a novel form of rural education promoted by the Ministry of Education of the Second Republic. This was an outreach program to bring culture, film and literature to the most remote regions of then rural illiterate Spain. This program was seen as a threat by the fascists and was quickly dissolved. While Crenuda was decidedly left-leaning, he had no love for the Communists either, especially when he realized that they were as much into censorship and repression as their counterparts in the other side. Most poets, with few exceptions (Rafael Alberti for example, highly overrated also in my opinion) , quickly learnt the true nature of a Stalinist inspired government and lost faith in any revolution.
This biography also deals with Cernuda's ill-fated relationship with Serafin Ferro, a handsome young man for whom he fell in love and who hastily tired of him. While others would seldom come to fill the void, the hurt and scars of this love would last forever.
February 19, 2025
Libro imprescindible para conocer la vida del poeta. Taravillo se muestra exhaustivo y minucioso para transmitirnos desde todos los prismas posibles, el devenir de Luis Cernuda. Nos incluye fragmentos de sus libros y testimonios de personas que conocieron directamente a Cernuda, así como documentos relacionados con su vida o su obra. Adjunta además un apartado de fotografías relacionadas con el poeta. Dividido en dos partes, la primera, que es la que indico aquí, abarcaría los años españoles, es decir, desde su nacimiento en 1902, hasta la salida de España hacia Inglaterra el 14 de febrero de 1938.
Dentro de la Generación del 27 la vida y la obra de Luis Cernuda, merecen atención aparte. Su vida estuvo orientada en todo momento hacia su obra poética, quizás debida a su temprana soledad. Por otra parte, su vida y su obra encaminadas a través del amor, supusieron un intento de recobrar la inocencia de su edén de la infancia.
Me propongo establecer puntos clave en su vida, siguiendo la indispensable biografía de Antonio Rivero Taravillo, con el complemento de una muestra de su poesía a la que modestamente añadiré unas pinceladas orientativas.
Quien esté interesado/a en leer el artículo completo, que debido a su extensión se hace imposible incluir aquí, puede hacerlo en el siguiente enlace:
https://queridobartleby.es/luis-cernu...
Dentro de la Generación del 27 la vida y la obra de Luis Cernuda, merecen atención aparte. Su vida estuvo orientada en todo momento hacia su obra poética, quizás debida a su temprana soledad. Por otra parte, su vida y su obra encaminadas a través del amor, supusieron un intento de recobrar la inocencia de su edén de la infancia.
Me propongo establecer puntos clave en su vida, siguiendo la indispensable biografía de Antonio Rivero Taravillo, con el complemento de una muestra de su poesía a la que modestamente añadiré unas pinceladas orientativas.
Quien esté interesado/a en leer el artículo completo, que debido a su extensión se hace imposible incluir aquí, puede hacerlo en el siguiente enlace:
https://queridobartleby.es/luis-cernu...
March 15, 2016
A vivid, impressive biographical work.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews