José Hierro del Real

Bust of José Hierros in San Sebastián de los Reyes

José Hierro del Real (born April 3, 1922 in Madrid - died December 21, 2002 in Madrid), also known as José Hierro or Pepe Hierro , was a Spanish poet . He belonged to the group of uprooted or existential poetry within the so-called first "post-war generation" of Spanish literature . He wrote for the magazines Espadaña and Garcilaso .

In his first books, Hierro kept away from the prevailing tendencies and decided to continue the work of Juan Ramón Jiménez , Antonio Machado , Pedro Salinas , Gerardo Diego and also Rubén Darío . When social poetry later became fashionable in Spain, he incorporated numerous experimental elements ( literary montage , dramatic monologue, linguistic culturalism ...) into his poetry.

biography

Born in Madrid in 1922, he spent most of his life in Cantabria as his family moved to Santander when he was two years old. There he studied economics, but had to break off his studies in 1936 with the beginning of the Spanish civil war.

When the war ended, he was arrested and imprisoned himself for membership in an "aid organization for political prisoners," including his own father. He spent five years in prison and was released in Alcalá de Henares in January 1944. He lived in Valencia until 1946. There he took part in a literary circle in the Café El Cato Negro, which included Ricardo Blasco , Angelina Gatell, Alejandro y Vicente Gaos and Pedro Caba Landa . He worked in various jobs. In 1948 he wrote his first art review for the Diario Alerta de Santander newspaper about the Burgos painter Modesto Ciruelos, a good friend who died that same year. As an art critic he worked for various media, especially for Radio Nacional and the party organ of the Spanish Falange Diario Arriba from Madrid. In 1949 he married María de los Ángeles Torres. Together with Carlos Salomón he founded the magazine Proel , directed the publications Cámara de Comercio and Cámara Sindical Agraria until 1952 and finally settled in Madrid. There he took up his profession as a writer again. He worked in the CSIC and in the Editorial Nacional. He worked for the literary magazines Corcel and Espadaña , Garcilaso , among others . Juventud creadora , Poesía de España and Poesía Española . He was a participant of the literary congress Congresos de Poesía de Segovia from June 17 to 24, 1952 and Salamanca, July 5, 1953. In April 1999 he was elected a member of the Real Academia Española , but he did not get the chance to give the lecture. because he suffered a heart attack shortly afterwards in 2000, which was complicated by an enphysema due to his smoking addiction, of which he died on December 21, 2002.

He had a habit of never writing in-house, so it was normal to see him in the cafeteria on Avenida Ciudad de Barcelona in Madrid. He wrote all of his works there and in other cafés. Even so, he was a slow and conscientious worker: some of his poems took several years to get into their final form. At times he also devoted himself to painting.

José Hierro received the following literary prizes: Premio Adonáis (1947), Premio Nacional de Poesía (1953 and 1999), Premio de la Crítica (1958 and 1965), Premio de la Fundación Juan March (1959), Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras ( 1981), Premio Nacional de las Letras Españolas (1990), Premio Reina Sofía de Poesía Iberoamericana (1995), Premio Cervantes (1998), Premio Europeo de Literatura Aristeión (1999) and Premio Ojo Crítico (1999).

Since 1995 he has been Doctor Honoris Causa of the Universidad Internacional Menéndez y Pelayo and in 2002 the University of Turin also awarded him an honorary doctorate. In 1982 he was adopted as the son of Cantabria. In 2002 the city council of Madrid awarded him the city's gold medal. On April 25, 2008, the city of Santander honored him on the seafront promenade Paseo Marítimo, next to Puertochico, with a bust inspired by the verses of his poems about the bay: “When I die, they will undress me and unite me with the sea. The gray waters will be my shield and there will be no need to fight. "

There is another bust of the poet in San Sebastián de los Reyes ( Madrid ) opposite the building of the Universidad Popular José Hierro . This is also where the university's prize for literature, Premio Nacional de Poesía José Hierro, is awarded, which is endowed with prize money of 15,000 euros. He was also honored in Cabezón de la Sal ( Cantabria ) with a bust in the Parque del Conde San Diego, as he visited it every year for the opening of the traditional festival Día de Cantabria.

Analysis of his work

His first verses appeared in various publications on the Republican front. After the war ended, he spent four years in prison, an experience that left a lasting mark on him. So it came about that when he returned to the literary stage in the 1940s, two books appeared almost at the same time, in which he passed on his bitter autobiographical experiences that give his poetry a maturity that is rare among young poets. The first is called Tierra sin nosotros (1947 - Earth without us) and, like many other works from the post-war period, tried to process the fact that the once habitable homeland was in ruins.

The following book Alegría (1947 - Freude) (Premio Adonáis) is a continuation of the thoughts from Tierra sin nosotros .

Con las piedras, con el viento (1950 - With the stones, with the wind), bears witness to a love that is also doomed to failure.

With Quinta del 42 (1953 - recruit of 42) begins the exploration of solitude, which Hierro was never alien, but which he had veiled. His social poetry is unusual, and it anticipates the mechanisms that overcame a realism that until then had gagged Spanish poetry.

Really anti-realistic is Cuanto sé de mí (1957 - As far as I know about myself), a book that underlines verbal concern, challenges the imagination and detaches itself from history and time in order to give access to the “sonorous cave of riddles”.

These elements culminate in the Libro de las alucinaciones (1964 - Book of Hallucinations). It is characterized by a powerful, irrational bond that often ends in a prayer saying. This volume of poetry finally breaks with spatial-temporal divisions.

In 1974 he published a new edition of Cuanto sé de mí , a new volume of poetry entitled Agenda in 1991 , Emblemas neurorradiológicos in 1995 and Cuaderno de Nueva York towards the end of the 90s , the latter being seen as a masterpiece of contemporary literature.

His poetry is directed towards the past and expresses a fragile intimacy at an irreconcilable time. The influence of Gerardo Diego is palpable. It begins with a controversial topic, the memory of a war child; even if he wasn't a social poet in the strict sense, he gradually became social and existential.

Publications

in Spanish

• Alegría , Madrid, Col. Adonáis, 1947 (Premio Adonáis 1947).
• Tierra sin nosotros , Santander, Proel, 1947.
• Con las piedras, con el viento , Santander, Proel, 1950.
• Quinta del 42 , Madrid, Editora Nacional, 1952.
• Antología , Santander, 1953 (contains unpublished poems. Premio Nacional de Literatura).
• Estatuas yacentes , Santander, Beltrán de Heredia, 1955.
• Cuanto sé de mí , Madrid, Ágora, 1957 (Premio de la Crítica).
• Poesías completas. 1944–1962 , Madrid, Giner, 1962.
• Libro de las alucinaciones , Madrid, Editora Nacional, 1964 (Premio de la Crítica).
• Problemas del análisis del lenguaje moral (1970).
• Cuanto sé de mí , Barcelona, ​​Seix Barral, 1974 (complete lyric work with unpublished poems).
• Quince días de vacaciones (1984), prose.
• Reflexiones sobre mi posía (1984), essay.
• Cabotaje (1989), anthology.
• Agenda , Madrid, Prensa de la ciudad, 1991.
• Prehistoria literaria , Santander, Artes Gráficas Gonzalo Bedia, 1991 (not available in bookshops).
• Emblemas neurorradiológicos (1995).
• Sonetos , Ayuntamiento de Santa María de Cayón, Cantabria, 1995 (2nd expanded edition, San Sebastián de los Reyes , Universidad Popular José Hierro , 1999).
• Cuaderno de Nueva York , Madrid, Hiperión, 1998 (Premio Nacional de Literatura).
• Guardados en la sombra , Madrid, Visor, 2002.
• José Hierro. Poesías completas (1947–2002) , Madrid, Visor, 2009.

bibliography

• Rogers, DM: "El tiempo en la poesía de J. Hierro" en Archivum, nos 1-2 (November de 1961), pp. 201-230.
• Jiménez, JO: "La poesía de J. Hierro", en Cinco poetas del tiempo (Madrid, 1972), pp. 177-326.
• Villar, A. del "El vitalismo alucinado de J. Hierro", en Arbor, nº 349 (enero de 1975), pp. 67-80.
• Peña, PJ de la: Individuo y colectividad: el caso de J. Hierro (Valencia, 1978).
• Albornoz, A. de: José Hierro (Madrid. 1981).
• González, JM: Poesía española de posguerra: Celaya, Otero, Hierro (1950-1960) (Madrid, 1982).
• Torre, EE de: José Hierro: poeta de testimonio (Madrid, 1983).
• García de la Concha, V .: "Un poeta del tiempo histórico: J. Hierro", en La poesía española de 1935 a 1975 (Madrid, 1987), tomo II, pp. 632-660.
• Corona Marzol, G .: Bibliografía de José Hierro (Zaragoza, 1988) y Realidad vital y realidad poética (Poesía y poética de J. Hierro) (Zaragoza, 1991).
• VVAA: A José Hierro. Encuentros . Domingo Nicolás (Ed.) Instituto de Estudios Almerienses. (Almería, 1999).
• VVAA: Espacio Hierro. Medio siglo de creación poética de José Hierro . Juan Antonio González Fuentes y Lorenzo Olivan (Eds.) Universidad de Cantabria. (Santander, 2001).
• Vierna, Fernando de: "La leyenda del almendro" en Exordio , nº 2. (Santander, 2003).

Web links

• José Hierro en el Centro Virtual Cervantes
• Selección Poética I
• Selección Poética II
• Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes
• Encuentro digital con José Hierro - el-mundo.es
• Bases del Premio Nacional de Poesía José Hierro
• Homenaje a José Hierro (Vídeo)
• Premio Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras 1981

Individual evidence

1. ↑ cf. Ángel Luis Luján, “Alucinada tentación de lo clásico”, Revista de Libros , 161, mayo de 2010, pág. 34.
2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.