Jorge Guillén’s Las doce en el reloj appeared in his first collection of poems, Cántico (1928). Its theme is the completeness reached at a moment in time—noon, the present—by a man, the poet, immersed in a place, the world, which… Read More ›
Spanish Literature
Analysis of Jorge Guillén’s The Power of Pérez
Potencia de Pérez (The Power of Pérez) was published in Maremágnum (1957), a collection of poems that is part of Clamor. Jorge Guillén’s attitude toward the world is less positive in Clamor than in Cántico. The recurring topic is contemporary… Read More ›
Analysis of Rafael Alberti’s Picasso
This poem is a homage to the work of Rafael Alberti’s friend, the famous painter and fellow Spaniard Pablo Picasso (1881–1973). Alberti met the artist in 1933; in the following decades, they collaborated on various projects and remained close until… Read More ›
Analysis of Federico García Lorca’s Ode to Walt Whitman
The central poem of the Poet in New York (Poeta en Nueva York) cycle, “Ode to Walt Whitman” is one of Federico García Lorca’s lyric landmarks in which the poet uses avant-garde form (including free verse and surrealist imagery) to… Read More ›
Analysis of Juan Ramón Jiménez’s Nocturne
“Nocturno” (Nocturne), from the collection Diario de un poeta recién casado (Diary of a Newlywed Poet), is an excellent example of Jiménez’s “naked poetry.” Employing simple language and rhythmic free verse, “Nocturno” is a meditation on the traveler’s longing for… Read More ›
Analysis of Federico García Lorca’s Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
Llanto por Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, considered Federico García Lorca’s masterpiece, describes the tragic death of Ignacio Sánchez Mejías, a famous bullfighter and García Lorca’s close friend. A professional torero who loved literature and music and wrote poetry, Sánchez Mejías retired… Read More ›
Analysis of Federico García Lorca’s The Faithless Wife
“The Faithless Wife” (“La casada infiel”) is part of Gypsy Ballads (Romancero gitano), Federico García Lorca’s most famous poetry cycle (1921–27), which pays tribute to the verve of Spain’s legendary outsiders whose freedom-loving spirit, wild passions, and uncompromising ways had… Read More ›
Analysis of Vicente Aleixandre’s City of Paradise
Ciudad del paraíso (“City of Paradise”), from the collection Sombra del paraíso (1944), typifies the style that established Vicente Aleixandre as the seminal poetic voice in Spain after the Spanish Civil War (1936–39). An homage to Málaga, where the poet… Read More ›
Analysis of César Vallejo’s The Black Heralds
The Black Heralds (also published as The Black Messengers) expresses the metaphysics of human pain and suffering that informed much of César Vallejo’s poetry. In contrast to Romantic writers who considered poetry a means to commune with the sublime, Vallejo… Read More ›
Analysis of Javier Marías’s The Man of Feeling
In “Something Unfulfilled,” an epilogue to The Man of Feeling, Javier Marías (1951–2022) compares the writing of fiction to a love’s invention, “discovering or stumbling upon something” where but an image existed before, “its first throb” (Nabokov’s phrase, appropriated by… Read More ›
Analysis of Camilo José Cela’s The Hive
The Hive was the second great success in the career of one of the most influential Spanish writers of the 20th century, Camilo José Cela (1916– 2002). Written in the bitter aftermath of the Spanish civil war (1936–39), the novel… Read More ›
Analysis of Camilo José Cela’s The Family of Pascual Duarte
The Spanish author Camilo José Cela (1916–2002) started his successful first novel in 1940 and finished it in 1942. After being rejected by several editors, the book was published in Burgos, Spain, in 1942, and it caused immediate opposing reactions…. Read More ›
Analysis of Isabel Allende’s Eva Luna
The majority of the characters drawn by the writer Isabel Allende (1942– ) possess some special talent or attribute. Eva Luna, the protagonist of the novel Eva Luna, is not an exception to that rule. In this novel, Allende experiments… Read More ›
Analysis of Martín Luis Guzmán’s The Eagle and the Serpent
Martín Luis Guzmán’s (1887– 1977) best-known novel owes much to the genre of historical fiction, but it is often described as a seminal novel of the 1910 Mexican Revolution. The Eagle and the Serpent, first published in Spain in 1928… Read More ›
Analysis of Carlos Fuentes’s The Campaign
Beginning in 1958 with Where the Air Is Clear, Carlos Fuentes (1928–2012) has written several major novels, short stories, plays, screenplays, and numerous critical essays. With The Campaign, Fuentes recounts the history of the Americas and, more important, the origins… Read More ›
Analysis of Lope de Vega’s The Best Mayor, The King
Lope is like ten brilliant minds inhabiting one body. An attempt to enclose him in any formula is like trying to make one pair of boots to fit a centipede. —Ezra Pound, The Spirit of Romance Any gathering of the… Read More ›
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