Manuel González Prada

Manuel González Prada (1915)

Jose Manuel de los Reyes González de Prada y Ulloa (born January 5, 1844 in Lima , † July 22, 1918 ibid) was a Peruvian politician , anarchist , literary scholar and writer who published his poem Al Amor in 1867 in the newspaper El Comercio established modernismo in Peruvian literature . In 1885 he became president of the Círculo Literario , from which in 1891 one of the oldest parties in the country emerged with the Unión Nacional , and most recently director of the national library ( Biblioteca Nacional del Perú ) between 1912 and his death in 1918 .

Life

Jose Manuel de los Reyes González de Prada y Ulloa, son of the judge and mayor of the city of Lima from 1857 to 1858 Francisco González de Prada and his wife María Josefa Álvarez de Ulloa, attended the Real Convictorio de San Carlos and then studied at the the Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos (UNMSM). With his poem Al Amor , published in the newspaper El Comercio in 1867 , he founded modernism in Peruvian literature . His autodidactic literary training focused on the Spanish classics , the French symbolists and some German authors such as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller and Theodor Körner , which he translated himself. On this basis, he carried out a metrical and rhythmic renewal of Spanish poetry , which he published in the treatise Ortometría , published in 1877 . Apuntes para una rítmica . In it he introduced metrical stanzas from French and Italian medieval poetry as well as Persian compositions. During the Saltpeter War he did military service as a reserve officer between 1879 and 1889 .

In 1885 Manuel González Prada became president of the Círculo Literario , a club of liberal writers. He wrote radical articles and speeches in which he criticized the social and economic conditions, defended the indigenous people, criticized the aristocracy, the army and the Catholic Church as the three pillars of the Peruvian oligarchy . He was also a radical critic of the continued Spanish influence in Latin America . He and the influence of positivism and European realism , noticeable throughout Latin America since 1880, influenced the works of authors such as Clorinda Matto de Turner and Mercedes Cabello de Carbonera . Your political ideas were shaped by positivism, promoted anarchist ideology and prepared the basis for the modern political parties in Peru.

Manuel González Prada was since 1887 with the writer de Verneuil Adriana married

After one of the oldest parties in the country emerged from the Círculo Literario in 1891 with the Unión Nacional , he wrote its basic program and then went to Europe . There he attended lectures at the Collège de France and undertook studies in theaters, museums and libraries. In 1894 he published Páginas libres . When this was published in Peru, copies were publicly burned in protest against the liberal ideas there.

After his return to Peru in 1898 he became chairman of the Unión Nacional and published other articles that were critical of the socio-economic conditions. When the government and conservative forces shut down newspaper publishers in which his articles appeared, he increasingly radicalized his political thinking into an anarchist- anti-clerical philosophy. He was finally excommunicated because of his criticism of the Catholic Church .

Before the elections in 1904, Manuel González Prada was mentioned as a possible joint presidential candidate of the Unión Nacional and the Liberal Party, but turned down a candidacy. In 1912 he was appointed director of the National Library (Biblioteca Nacional del Perú) as the successor to Ricardo Palma . He resigned from this office in protest against the disempowerment of constitutional President Guillermo Billinghurst on February 4, 1914. In 1915, the newly elected President José Pardo y Barreda reappointed him as director of the National Library and held this position until his death on July 22, 1918, when Alejandro Deústua Escarza succeeded him.

From his marriage to the writer Adriana de Verneuil in 1887 , the writer and diplomat Alfredo González Prada emerged. His daughter Mercedes González Prada Calvet also came from his relationship with Verónica Calvet y Bolívar. After his death he was buried at the Cementerio Presbítero Matías Maestro in Lima.

Publications

His poetry, some of which was published posthumously, is thematically linked to a rebellious romanticism that betrays its political and social concerns and, in its reserved and precise expression, is committed to symbolism. His works include:

• Ortometría. Apuntes para una rítmica , 1877
• Páginas libres , 1894
• Minúsculas , poems, 1901
• Horas de lucha , 1908
• Presbiterianas , poems, 1909
• Exóticas , poems, 1911

posthumously

• Trozos de vida , poems, 1933
• Baladas peruanas , poems, 1935
• Grafitos , poems, 1937
• Adoración , poems, 1946

Background literature

• Thomas Ward: La anarquía imanentista de Manuel González Prada , Washington, DC, 1998, ISBN 0-8204-3079-X
• Mónica Albizúrez Gil: Modernidades extremas. Textos y prácticas literarias en América Latina: Francisco Bilbao, Manuel González Prada, Manuel Ugarte y Manoel Bomfim , Verlag Klaus Dieter Vervuert, Frankfurt am Main 2016, ISBN 978-3-95487-501-6

Web links

• Manuel González Prada (prabook.com)
• Manuel González Prada (biografiasyvidas.com)