Luis Cernuda

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Luis Cernuda bigraphy, stories - Educators

Luis Cernuda : biography

September 21, 1902 – November 5, 1963

Luis Cernuda (born Luis Cernuda Bidón September 21, 1902, Seville – November 5, 1963, Mexico City), 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 that lasted till the end of his life. He taught in the universities of Glasgow and Cambridge before moving in 1947 to the USA. In the 1950s he moved to Mexico. While he continued to write poetry, he also published wide-ranging books of critical essays, covering French, English and German as well as Spanish literature. He was frank about his homosexuality at a time when this was problematic and became something of a role model for this in Spain. His collected poems were published under the title La realidad y el deseo.

Prose poetry and criticism

Cernuda produced two collections of prose poetry. Ocnos was originally published in 1942 in London. Subsequent augmented editions were pulbished in Madrid in 1949 and Xalapa in 1963. Variaciones sobre tema mexicano was published in 1952.

He published critical articles all through his career however he also produced 4 major works of criticism:

  • Estudios sobre poesía española contemporánea (Madrid 1957) in a heavily bowdlerised version that omitted the chapters relating to living figures such as Guillén, Aleixandre, Altolaguirre, Diego and Alberti.
  • Pensamiento poético en la lírica inglesa (Mexico 1958)
  • Poesía y literatura, I y II (Barcelona 1960, 1964)

Biography

Seville and early life

Cernuda was born in the Barrio Santa Cruz, Calle Conde de Tójar 6 (now Acetres),Villena intro to edition of Las Nubes p 11 in Seville in 1902, the son of a colonel in the Regiment of Engineers.Poesía completa: Cronología biográfica He had two older sisters. The recollections and impressions of childhood contained in his poems, and the prose poems collected in Ocnos, suggest that he was always a solitary, introverted, and timid child whose unhappiness in the family led to his living vicariously through books and through his strong visual impressions of his native city.Connell p 201 His first encounter with poetry came at the age of 9 when he glanced through a copy of Bécquer’s Rimas that had been lent to his sisters by their cousins Luisa and Brígida de la Sota.Cernuda: OCP vol 1 Historial de un libro p 625 Despite the fact that he later testified that this left no more than a dormant impression upon him, he began to write poetry himself during his studies at the Escolapios School in Seville from 1915-19 around the age of 14. In 1914, the family moved into the Engineers’ Barracks in the Prado, on the outskirts of Seville. In 1918, they moved to Calle del Aire, where he would later write the poems of Perfil del aire. Birthplace of Luis Cernuda in Seville In 1919 he began to study Law at the University of Seville, where, during his first year, he attended classes In Spanish Language and Literature given by Pedro Salinas. His extreme shyness prevented him from mentioning his literary activities until Salinas’ notice was caught by a prose poem published in a student magazine. He gave Cernuda encouragement and urged him to read both classical Spanish poetry and modern French literature.Cernuda: OCP vol 1 Historial de un libro p 627 It was at Salinas’ suggestion that Cernuda sent his first collection of poetry, Perfil del aire, to Altolaguirre and Prados, who had begun, late in 1926, to publish a magazine called Litoral. As was the practice in those days, many such magazines published collections of poetry as supplements.

His father died in 1920 and he continued to live at home with his mother and sisters. In 1923 he did military service in the Regiment of Cavalry. In 1924, as he was reaching the end of his undergraduate course, he participated in a series of meetings with a small group of fellow students in Salinas’s house. These stimulated his poetic vocation and helped to guide his readings of French literature.